


Hartwin Inktober

by AuthentiKait



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Amnesia!Harry, Angry Harry, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Eggsy, Canon Harry Hart, Canon Related, Canonical Character Death, Caring Eggsy, Comfort/Angst, Confession, Cuddling, Domestic Fluff, Eggsy POV, Eggsy can sing, Eggsy panics, Eggsy tries his hardest, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Hartwin, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Ghost Harry, Grief, Griefstricken Eggsy, Guilt, Guilty!Eggsy, Hamish the dog (kingsman), Hamish the puppy, Harry pov, Hartwin, Heartbroken Harry, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Inktober, Intersex, Kingsman + 8 years, Kingsman 2 crack, Kingsman Crack, Kingsman Spoilers, Kingsman: The Golden Circle Spoilers, M/M, Male Pregnancy, Married!Hartwin, Mid-Canon, Mpreg, Mr Pickle - Freeform, Non-Canon Relationship, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Oblivious Eggsy Unwin, Passage of time, Post-Canon, Post-Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Pre-Canon, Pre-Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Romance, Self-conscious Harry, Singing Eggsy Unwin, Slow Burn, Smitten Harry Hart, Smol Eggsy, Suffering Eggsy, Survivor Guilt, Unrequited Love, Voicemail, angsty confession, bamf Ginger Ale, canon compliance, child!Eggsy, comfrtable relationship, confused!Harry', domestic Hartwin, hartwin inktober, i love him so much, intersex!Eggsy, merlin and roxy are tired of their shit, merlin lives, non-canon scene, not actual infidelity, oblivious hartwin, patient Eggsy, scarred harry, superspy idiots, yeehaw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-01-27 18:48:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 27,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12588288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthentiKait/pseuds/AuthentiKait
Summary: 31 days of Harry Hart x Eggsy Unwin, based on prompts from tumblr.1. Searching. 2. Barefoot. 3. Warmth 4. Compliment 5. Fallen 6. Water 7. Confusion 8. Impasse 9. Strings 10. Honour11. Seasons 12. Instrument 13. Foolish 14. Haunted 15. Intimacy 16. Defiance 17. Jubilant 18. Waiting 19. Nature20. Sheltered 21.  Fingertips 22. Lost 23. Wishes 24. Breakable 25. Friend 26. Realisation 27. Cage 28. Power 29. Invitation 30. Secret 31.FinalI had exams halfway through so bear with me, some will be late uploads.





	1. 1. Searching

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Searching.
> 
> So this one I did something different- it's a very long poem (or it tries to be, I'm not very good at peotry). Just wanted to try something new.

A body slips from ruby-sprayed thighs

To gasp a first, shuddering wet breath

Coddled in cloth, an aching cry

The search has now begun

Birthmother, ma, mummy, mum, 

Soft hands, scalding words when

Purple paint polka dots the carpet

And father, da, daddy, dad

Uniform man comes and goes

A nickname born lying in the grass

 

A toy soldier goes missing, Daddy

unit of three  down to two

Pink gold medal pressed into palms

By an unkown gentleman

Too young to feel the spark that sings

Between the eyes of brown and green

 

Sharp years

Clawed survival, bottom of the heap

Medals don't put food in bellies, you see

Dreaming of days where there's plenty, and the search is complete

Can't do gym if no money for the meet

Slip school food in a pocket to take home

and eat 

When there's none

What's done is done

They struggle but survive

Until he comes

Rips the tissue paper mum apart

Supposed to make it better 

But he's squeezing her heart

Nothing but backhands and screams

And all the broken dreams

Of an army man who'd never raise a hand

To his blond prince and his 'Chelle queen

 

The chips fall, onto shoulders

Years get colder

Another flower blooms from mother's womb

Eggsy's the first to hold her

As other things bloom, like cut lips and black eyes

She makes excuses like she does, won't let her kids see her cry

 

The search is fruitless, Love is useless

Cooked up for the masses, only for the toothless

Doing what you do to get by

do the pill runs, get the money, 

Pinch wallets at the turn of the eye

Nightclubs and smoky lungs and fuck! right?

 

Don't let them in, don't let them see

The peach heart beneath the fake Ralph polo

Drown it in powdered easy birds, in ketamine

Fists are the poor man's poetry

Nothing but swagger and loyalty

For the bruvs that dream alongside pints

Of success beyond the estates and glory

 

One fuck-up too many, arsehole

Took Rotty's car for spins, ran it to a pole

Dodge the fox, on the rocks 

18 months in the clink 'cording to the cops

Detective with purple bags 'neath the eyes

'You got one phone call, then the end is nigh'

Metal shifting beneath your shirt

Wait- it's got a number! Call it- try, can't hurt.

Fuck- shoulda called mum. Tailor shops ain't help thugs

Til they do? Cuffs off, mask on. Run so they won't realise they've got it wrong-

 

"Eggsy."

Tall drink of waiter in a suit that isn't off the rack

Long legs, crossed at the ankle, glasses tinted black

The man who got you released? Sugar daddy type, prob'ly frequents Smith Street.

But your name on his lips sounds like a truth, not a crime

How would that hand look like holding yours, through time?

The strangest feeling, leaving you somewhat suspended

Who the fuck is he? 

The search has ended.

 

 

 


	2. 2. Barefoot.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2\. Barefoot.   
> Short story format will be used for the remaining 30 prompts (I think).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also if you think you've read some of these stories before, you probably have- I posted the first few on tumblr under my username, daddygraves! So feel free to browse through my trashcan of a blog. 
> 
> This was one of my fav prompts, hope you like what I've done with it.

The first tiny footsteps in Harry's house were paws. Fluffy, silky, hairy paws, that trotted to and fro, and wherever Harry went. And always waited ever so patiently by the toilet door, when he went to do his business. Footsteps that pranced up the stairs, and down again. That grew slower, more disjointed and stiff, until Harry had to carry the owner of those tiny paws up and down the stairs. Until one heartbreaking day, they no longer trotted at all. But now sat still forever, and finally got to join him inside the curious interior of the downstairs loo.

The next tiny footsteps don't come until years later, so long that Harry had almost forgotten what paws on his floor sounded like. But these paws were different to the first- they gambolled rather than pranced, and barked at the doorbell, the birds outside and the postman. They ate so much, they could barely face climbing the stairs during their short stay at Harry's house. But if he had returned from Kentucky, as planned, he probably would've missed those galumphing paws.

Time passes. Things happen, and the world changes. Harry returns from Kentucky a different man, to a different England, a different Kingsman. But he comes home with a new pair of feet- paws, again. Silky, fluffy paws like the first to traverse the wooden floors, that trotted rather than gambolled. But these paws had their own charisma, their own desire to be held and cherished, which Harry was more than happy to oblige. For he needs these paws right now just as much as they need him, in this cold, new world that he'd forgotten.

With those new paws comes another set of footsteps. And after a time, of reacquaintance and tearful lovelorn exchanges, the footsteps, now sadly sans paws, became a resident of Harry's establishment. Another set of feet to hold Harry when he wakes at night with stabbing, relentless pain, sweating. To coax a smile to his face on days that do not feel even remotely sunshiney. To love him, as he loves them, wholly and unconditionally, even if they never make the bed, have hideous taste in street clothes and sometimes slip and call him 'bruv'.

But the newly rehomed footsteps come with another small set of feet. Human feet, that pattered and shrieked and giggled with the new paws, and brought Barbies and Dora the Explorer into Harry's study. Little feet that snuggled under a blanket with Harry's and her elder brother's, for weekends when the latter were tasked with babysitting duty.

But these little feet grow into slightly bigger feet that don't stay as often. There aren't enough feet in Harry's house anymore. And that is just no good.

There are quiet, whispered conversations, triumphs and tears of failure. But a little, tiny miracle blossoms into life, cocooned in the belly of an overjoyed pair of feet. And Harry can only watch in rapture as that minute, absolutely miniscule pair of feet grow, and grow, and grow, until-

A car arrives at Harry's house one day, and out step some pairs of feet. The first pair are feet that have been there since the beginning. Then the feet that arrived halfway through, who weren't expected to stay, but did. And then theres the last, smallest pair of feet, soft and unmarred as they are gently carried inside. That will one day learn to tread the wooden floors with those new paws, which aren't so new anymore. Who will be chased, howling with mirth, by her fathers, a chorusing stampede of feet. Who will live every day knowing she is loved to infinity and beyond, and that Daddy and Papa, the tailors with guns in their drawers, would bring down the entire universe just to keep her safe.

And they will all step forth into whatever the future brought, together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, feet.


	3. 3. Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3\. Warmth
> 
> Some kind of love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning, fluff ahead.

"Ya elbows in me ribs, love."

The slow muffled mumble of his lover's voice makes Harry blink sleepily. He shifts the offending limb, though it feels made of concrete, beneath the cotton cloud of sheets. Smooth, cosy arms cuddle around him closer.

"Ta."

It's an endless morning. Drifting in and out of the lace embrace of sleep, the strings of unconsciousness still tugging on foggy heads and lazy unopened eyes. The faint calls of morning birds that filter through the curtains with the streaky mid-morning sunshine. No alarms, no engagements- just languid, luxurious hours of dozing in bed, punctuated by caressing limbs and absent sleepy kisses.

Harry rolls over, flopping an arm out of the covers to draw his boy close, blindly carding a gentle hand through soft locks of hair. The musky, natural aroma of Eggsy, raw, glowing skin, both wakes him and sends him back under. An angel dozes before him, with a picture perfect bedhead, a dust pink blush of life tinting smooth, sculpted cheeks. A masterpiece, that was all Harry's to admire.

Even if the young man's knee was uncomfortably digging into Harry's ribs. "Shift your knee, darling".

"Mmm." The knee is moved, and both men draw closer together, luxuriating in the simple pleasure of contact.

Claws tap on the wood floor of the hallway slowly, and the noise of the bedroom door being pushed open by a snuffling, wet nose is heard.

"C'mere, JB," Eggsy murmurs, sluggishly tapping the bedcovers and he buries his face in Harry's clavicle. A soft jingle and a muffled thump, and a furry little body curls up atop the duvet-draped pair contentedly.

These were the moments to be cherished. They might not even be moments, rather elongated seconds, minutes, hours, where one loses track of time. Where naught matters but the press of a lover's frame, curled loosely around each other, limbs tangled in a symphony of hazy comfortability.

"Ya got major morning breath, sorry babe." Eggsy snuggles away from Harry's parted mouth, the elder man spooning him softly.

"Mmph. Your hair is in my mouth."   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uncomfortable cuddling is cute af, just saying.


	4. 4. Compliments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daddy gave Mummy compliments. Eggsy saw him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4 yay! No hartwin really in this one, but still sort of relevant. Just a little relationship builder betwen Eggsy and his precious girls.

Daddy gave Mummy compliments. Eggsy saw him.

Every single day without fail, Lee Unwin would go out of his way to make sure he said something nice to Michelle. At the shops, linking his fingers through hers as Eggsy pulled on his other arm towards the toy shop, clamouring for some new trinket. "You're perfect, love."

In the garden, where he'd wipe the sweat from his brow, announcing "A lovely flower for my lovely lady". And present a beaming Michelle with a single blooming Daisy.

Even at breakfast, when a rare day off the Marines struck, and Lee got up extra early to make his specialty- triple chocolate frosty flake banana cherry pancakes, with rainbow sprinkles on top. Eggsy's favourite. "Only the best for my boy and my sweetheart," Lee would laugh, as Michelle swatted his arms, squawking  about the mess in the kitchen while he swept her off her feet.

Often, Eggsy would hear Daddy be nice to Mummy more than once a day, as he raced his matchbox cars across the carpet, or rocketed around in his cardboard 'army fatigues'. His parents were that grown-up thing called 'in love', which was kind of disgusting to a seven year old, all the kissing and clamoring. But Daddy's words seem to make Mummy happy, and that was just fine with Eggsy.

One day, just before Santa comes, Daddy doesn't come home. Mummy cries and cries, both in front of Eggsy and when she thinks he can't see or hear. But he does, late at night when his own tears soak his racecar pillowcase, and he clutches the medal the strange tall gentleman in the suit gave him. When all he wants, more than any gift Santa could bring him, is for Daddy to crash through the door and make Mummy smile again.

Daddy doesn't. There's not even a body for them to bury. They can't afford a headstone. All Eggsy has of Daddy is memories, and a little pink and gold medal with some numbers on the back.

He's the man of the house now. The gentleman told him to take care of Mummy. And that was what Eggsy was going to do, in any way he could.

"I like your jumper, Mummy."

"Sorry love?" Mummy peers at him from over his cornflakes, last night's makeup smeared beneath her eyes.

"Your jumper. You look pretty in it." Eggsy pushes his cereal around the bowl with his spoon.

A sloppy kiss is pressed to his forehead shakily, and a tear drips into his milk. "Thank you, sweetheart," Mummy whispers, and hands him his lunch for school before she hurriedly leaves the room. Eggsy hears her grief as he puts on his schoolbag, and quietly pulls the door shut to leave for school.

The next months and years are tough. There's not much money to spare, Mum can barely afford the rent, so Eggsy learns real quick from the mean-looking kids in the playground. How to pinch extra sandwiches from the mess hall counter to take home for dinner, cos Mum looks too thin, and which shops weren't likely to notice if he pinched a can or two off the shelf. He's not much good at first- the pigs haul him home a couple of times, and Mum shouts herself hoarse until she cries. And he let's her, let's her take it all out on him, all her pain, her frustration because she still can't find a fucking job, and still showers her with love.

"You're amazing, Mum. M'sorry. Don't give up, yeah? I'll fix this. Swear down."

And though she protests it's not a twelve year old's problem to fix, she pulls him in for one of her tight hugs anyway.

Then Dean comes along, a few struggling years later. With his terrible, fishy breath, piggy eyes, and leering, fake compliments. The first time Mum brings him home, the man sets Eggsy's hackles up. But he tries, for Mum. To get along with the man she's chosen to replace his father.

But Dean will never be the man Lee Unwin was. Especially not when he wheedles his way into moving in, rent-free, and puts his fist through the wall one night when Mum cooked him dinner he didn't like.

Eggsy waits for the front door to slam, before he goes straight to Mum, crying on the floor next to the shattered remains of the plate. He holds her close, and tells her how strong she is, despite the fact he can feel the heavy, damning collar settling on both their necks. Because his Mum was one in a million, but she has all the self-confidence of tissue paper. So Dean comes back. Again. And again.

It all blurs together into one horrific, stretched out nightmare. Dean lays hands on his Mum, and on Eggsy too, when the teenager tries to stop him. The motherfucker's dogs beat him bloody and bruised when Eggsy gets riled up about the drugs in the house, and kick him to the curb more than once. But when he stumbles through the door the morning after, spitting blood, the first thing he does is give his Mum a grimacing smile. Put ice on the cut on her cheek where Dean got her, and tell her no matter what, that she's still as pretty as anything. 

One day, he tells himself, stroking her soft blonde hair as she cries, hair that he got from her. One day he'll grow up, get some money  _somehow_ , he doesn't care how. And he'll spirit them away from this haunted house of nightmares. To somewhere good.

But a tiny morning star twinkles into life unexpectedly, halfway through this grand plan. When Eggsy comes home from a job he'd rather forget, that certainly isn't legal, to find a pregnancy test in Mum's shaking fingers. With two blue lines right down the middle.

It's then, that everything changes. It wasn't just him and Mum now, as her belly blossomed, Dean the benevolent, wrathful presence somewhere in the background. The twat blew his stack when he found out, going on about leeches and an extra mouth to feed, not that he even contributed to any of their upkeep. Eggsy does twice as many drug runs, pickpocketing and whatever else he can, and squirrels away every cent, safely away. For a change table, a second-hand crib he buys off Jamal's cousin, and as many tiny booties, onesies and nappies he can afford. To give the little life growing, his baby sibling, the best chance at a life away from Dean. He puts his hand to Mum's belly, feels them kick, and murmurs just how much he loves them, even though he's never met them yet.

And when baby Daisy is lifted free of the womb, after hours of screaming, pushing and pain, it's all worth it. Eggsy is the first to hold her, and all his troubles melt away at the sight of that tiny, scrunched face. This is  _his_  little sister, it don't matter who her daddy is. He'll protect his two girls now, and love them forever. Swear down.

Because if he can't afford to give them the lavish world they deserve, of comfort and convenience, then he'll give them the gift of words. So that little Daisy grows up, and never doubts for a second just how special she is. That she is strong, and beautiful, just like her mother, and that she can be whatever she chooses.

He'll say it 'til his lungs give out, because another man he used to know can't.


	5. Fallen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 5: Fallen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I wrote these on the actual days.  
> I was actually requested to write a 2nd part for this chapter when I originally posted it on tumblr, as people couldn't deal with the apparent cliffhanger :P So I will include it after this initial fic, and label them accordingly.

**PART I**

_Hey Harry. S'me, Eggsy._

_S'probably not the call you'd expect t' get fro me. But I'm 90,000 fuckin' feet in the air above the Pacific, me jet's been hit by that Aussie thug's rocket launcher, an' losin' altitude fast._   
_Merlin's tearing his eyebrows out, since he's got no hair, tryin' t save me as we speak, but we both know it ain't gonna happen. Both engine's are fucked, the ejector seat is jammed and I didn't pack a parachute. I'm losin' altitude pretty fast. I know you can 'ear all the beepin' and wailin' going on here in the cockpit, but jus' try t' ignore it, yeah?_

_I gotta come out wiv it now, Uddawise I'll never get the fuckin' chance. I'm sorry t' tell ya like this, but I won'rt be able t tell ya when ya fish wahteva's left o' me outta the ocean. Oh wait, Kingsman leaves bodies where they fall, eh? Being buried at sea ain't so bad I 'spose. Better'n being burned. Yuck._

_So here's the thing. I need ya t' take care of Mum n' Dais for me. I got enough money t' keep em tidy, don't worry. There's enough t' keep payin' the rent, n' Mum's pay from hairdressin' should keep just fine. There's anovver account for Dais' when she gets t' uni age, for 'er education, so you make sure that stays untouched, 'kay?_

_Tell 'em I died alright. Tha' I wasn't in any pain, tha' I didn't suffer. I don' give a fuck wha' the truth is, jus' tell 'em that. Make up some lie that' makes my death as painless as possible for 'em, ok? Say I'm missin' if ya have to. Just make sure they don't suffer, 'kay? An' tell em I love em._

_Tilde'll be right cut up. I love 'er too. But not in tha' way, bruv. We jus' married cos she needs the throne from 'er dad, cos he's well sick. Motor Neuron disease, early stages. She didn't want the Swedes t' see him suffer, said it wasn' humane t' 'die on the world stage'._   
  
_So is it okay if I tell ya how much I fuckin' love ya, and ya'll be the last thought in my mind when I go?. Cos I'm fallin out of the sky, hard an' fast, just like how I fell fa ya, bruv. M'sorry Harry. Really didn' want ya t' find out like this, in a fuckin' voicemail. But I've loved ya since ya bailed me out. I loved ya when ya copped tha' headshot in Kentucky. I loved ya when ya were my best man, but I hadn't the guts t' tell ya. Cos I know ya don't feel the same. An it's fine._

_I'll be wiv Rox, Jb an' me dad soon. I got bout 10 seconds. It's kinda beautiful out here, in a way. Goodbye, Harry. I love ya, I love ya, I love ya, I love ya, I love ya, I love ya I love ya I love ya I lo-_

**_Recording has ended. Press 1 to delete, or 2 to replay._ **

Death is white.

Blurry, blindingly, eye-wateringly white, with white walls, a beeping vitals machine, and a bed with warm, soft sheet.

Harry Hart, with bloodshot, baggy eyes, gripping Eggsy's warm hand with his larger one, head bent in prayer.

"Don't you ever,  _ever_  leave me a voicemail like that again".

 

**PART II**

Death has to be one big hallucination, where everything you’ve ever wanted, but can’t have, just…happens.

Eggsy’s in a white room. Or at least he thinks he is. It’s too bright, too blurry; too blinding, so he squints, blinking furiously to try and sharpen his focus.

Death is a comfortable bed, with cozy sheets and several fluffy, pillows stacked beneath his head. He’s in a room, with blinding white walls that looks like the Medical wing in HQ, the vitals machine next to his bed ticking along steadily-

Yep. Definitely a dream. Dead people didn’t have vital signs.

Death also contained a hand linked with his, larger fingers interloped between Eggsy’s. A hand that was attached to an arm, that was connected to a torso, which was connected to a head that looked like Harry Hart. A very woebegone, sleep-rumpled Harry, with gogantic purple bags beneath his eyes and coffee stains on his bespoke.

Eggsy sighs, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. If only Death’s dream was real. When he was alive, he would’ve killed for Harry to be holding his hand. At least he got to tell the real Harry how he felt, before it was too late. To bad he never got a response.

The sigh awakes the Harry-look alike with a jolt, and he sits back in his chair, wild, bloodshot eyes trained sharply on Eggsy. There’s a split second. And then the older man postively flings himself at Eggsy, whose, cast bandaged body protests painfully.

Wait, bandages? Plaster casts? And wasn’t death supposed to be painless?

“Ow.”

“I’m sorry, sorry,” not-Harry-but-might-actually-be-Harry apologises hurriedly, untangling his arms from around Eggsy’s rigidly bound body. But he stays close, running a hand through Eggsy’s light locks of hair. The younger man almost closes his eyes to the touch.

“Merlin, he’s awake,-”

The doors- death has rooms with doors?- slam open, and Merlin zooms inside as fast as his cybernetic legs can carry him. Merlin, who Eggsy knew for a fact was  _definitely not dead._

“Oh thank  _God_. We didna’ know if yeh were gonna wake up, Galahad,” the Scot addresses him, coming to a stop next to Eggsy’s bed.

“Wake up?” Eggsy replies with a hint of derision, looking between the elder men.

“Yes,” Merlin replies slowly, concern creasing his forehead. “Is there a problem?”

“Yes, there is, I fink, considering I’m dead?” Eggsy responds a tad snarkily, his ribs stinging in reproach. “I fell 30,000 feet in the jet? The ejector seat failed? This is a hallucination created by me brain t’ try an’ cope wif the fact I’m gone, an’ I’ll never see either of ya two again?”

Silence. Until the Quartermaster and Kingsman chief burst out laughing.

“Oh darling,” Harry chuckles, and whilst the pet name is comforting, it does not soothe Eggsy’s indignation. “You do have the penchant for dramatics.”

“I’m sorry to inform you of this, Galahad,” Merlin adds, a humorous curl to his lip as he clutches his trust clipboard. “But you are very much alive.”

“You’re serious?” He was alive. The blood he could feel thrumming through his veins was alive. The breath that his lungs summoned to fill them, was real oxygen. The dull pain that seemed to stretch from his toes to his head, throbbing achingly, was real. Which meant-  _which meant-_ that Merlin, and most importantly Harry, who was stroking the back of Eggsy’s hand comfortingly, was _real._

“What the fuck. How?” His own voice sounds incredulous, but so hopeful, as a smile threatens to capture his mouth.

“You can thank Merlin for that, Eggsy,” Harry explains, turning his eyes to the tech whiz, who ducks his head modestly.

“I managed to hack the jet’s failing systems with 10 seconds to spare, and activated the internal airbag system,” the Scot extrapolates humbly, tapping away at his clipboard.

He flips it around, Eggsy observes the internal cam inside the jet located behind the pilot’s seat, and watches as upon inpact with the glassy Pacific, a wall of puffy white airbags erupt out of the panels of the jet. He watches his unconscious frame flop around from bag to bag for several seconds, before the footage cuts out.

“The bags not only cushioned the impact, stopping the windshield from shattering, but managed to keep the aircraft afloat for the next hour, until the extraction team happened upon you,” Merlin offers up, as Eggsy lies there; dumbfounded by his own sheer luck. “You had a probable survival rate of .5%. Moderate brain bleed, 5 cracked vertebrae, shattered ribs and arm, perforated spleen, punctured lung, broken hip, overextended muscles and joints nearly everywhere; yet here you are.”

“Right,” Eggsy replies a little faintly, a whoosh of relief escaping his sore lungs. Harry just gives his bandaged hand a gentle squeeze.

Merlin departs with firm orders of bed rest until otherwise stated, and to buzz the big red button if he needed anything. And then Eggsy is alive, alone with Harry Hart, and feeling sick to his stomach.

A few moments of untouched silence tick by, before it bursts out of Eggsy.

“M'sorry about tha’ voicemail, forget itever happened please, Har-”

“I stick to a solemn code of manners almost all the time,” Harry interrupts, brown eyes locked with Eggsy’s green ones. “But today, they matter naught. My dear boy, I really must implore that just for a few minutes, you shut right up.”

Eggsy blinks, eyes wide with surprise, but obliges willingly.

“Thank you.” Another comforting squeeze of his hand.

“That voicemail was the most heartrending transmission I have ever received, in my entire life.”

“Haz-”

“Eggsy, please,” Harry implores him beseechingly, and reluctantly, the younger man reverts to silence.

“But it was also the most important wake up call I have had the fortune of receiving. The was no way, in utter fucking hell, that I was letting you go off and die after you sent me something like that."

“ You’ve been unconscious for nigh on two weeks now, and every single day, I have sat, right here.” Eggsy is paralysed by Harry’s gaze.

“I have not moved. I have prayed to every single god and deity that might be up there in oblivion, to grant me this one courtesy, after everything I’ve done. To spare you, so I could finally, selfishly express what I have surpressed for a foolishly long amount of time”.

“Eggsy,” the young man can barely breathe as Harry leans in close. “I don’t care you are married, especially considering it is a ‘marriage of convenience’, as you put it. I don’t care that I am your mentor, or that you are young enough to be my son.”

“All that I care about,” Harry says huskily, a hint of moisture swimming in his tired eyes. “Is telling you how completely and utterly enamored I am with you, and have been since I met you. And how foolhardy I feel for not realising it much sooner. My dear, dear boy-”

But whatever Harry is trying to say is lost, as a plastered arm forcibly pulls him down for a tearful, long-awaited kiss.

Because Eggsy is alive. And the man he is so utterly gone for, the gentleman who made him, loves him too.

Their moment transcends time, but eventually, they separate, foreheads pressed tightly together.

“I just have one request, if you are not opposed to my suggestion.”

“Anything for you, Harry.”

“I will singlehandedly murder you if you ever even  _think_ about leaving me a voicemail of that ilk _ever again.”_


	6. 6. Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To quote Ron Weasley, "you're going to suffer, but you're going to be happy about it."

"Eggsy, darling. I'm sorry. JB has passed away."

"....ah."

Every sinew of muscle in Eggsy's body has frozen. Blood now icy inside his veins, the cool misty fog numbing his brain.

"I'm sorry, dear," Harry takes his hand across the Round Table, stroking across the golden band on Eggsy's ring finger as Merlin stands awkwardly, debrief from Moscow finished. "He passed away in his sleep last night."

"I forbade Arthur from telling you," Merlin adds quietly, staring at the floor. "I didna' want yeh distracted on such a sensitive op. Those monarchists have instincts like razor wire, they'd've knocked yeh block off at any change, however slight. I'm sorry."

"S'alright." The words filter out of Eggsy's mouth mechanically. "He had a good run. Docs only gave him 2 years after that cancer diagnosis, an' old mate got almost five. At least he weren't in pain." He smiles, as his insides burn like paper, curling up and crumbling to ashes.

"I might head home now, yeah? I'll have dinner ready when you get back, babe," he addresses Harry, pushing his mahogany cushioned chair back as the two elder men start to protest.

"M'fine. S'all good. See ya."

He's out the door before either of Kingsman's seniors can get a word in.

Eggsy's strong. He's been through hell and back, in his thirty years. His dad gone by age eight, replaced by a sleazy, malevolent arsehole who beat him, Mum and Dais black and blue 'til Eggsy got good enough at hurting people to do something about it. Seen his husband die through a laptop screen, and come back sans left eye, but with heart entirely open. He's one of Kingsman's best- he's never broken cover, always held it together under even the most trying circumstances. Merlin trained him well.

He makes it all the way home to Mayfair, closing the immaculately painted front door behind him, before he cracks. And when Eggsy cracks, the whole dam fucking bursts.

There is nothing but pain. Body-rending, piercing, gut-grinding pain, as Eggsy screams into the soft embroidered sofa cushion Daisy made for him at school last year. Grief that slams into him, wave after wave, that leaves him gasping chokingly for air as his throat swells up. Vision that fails him as he collapses into a shaking heap by JB's dog bed, stroking the last few hairs that cling to the well-worn fabric as he cries until his ribs threaten to crack within his abdomen, straining against his skin.

This sort of suffering  transcends coherent thought. It could've been hours, days even, when Eggsy finds himself stripped, wobbling beneath the warm spray of the shower later, his tears combining with the droplets of water that cascade down his scrunched face.

- _the warm bundle he cradles to his chest after cold, unforgiving water is dumped on them both by a derisive Charlie, holding shivering JB to his own cool chest-_

_-the way JB used to galumph down the stairs as soon as he heard the slightest rustle of a food package being opened-_

_-the gormless, grinning, bug eyed face of Eggsy's first and only pet when he pulled the pug in for a tight cuddle, dragging his fingers across a keg belly carpeted with khaki fur- THAT ISN'T WARM ANYMORE BECAUSE HE'S GONE-_

His chest is ripped open by the projector film of excruciating memories. A dull thud sounds when he punches the tiles on the wall in front of him. Then another. Another.

Again and again and again, his hand a throbbing pulp of blood and mangled cartilage, tiles a fist-shaped shattered mess,  a feral scream erupting from his peeled back lips-

Until lightning-fast arms catch his wrist in hand, and a warm, suited body enfolds his own soaking one. 

Harrt Hart steps into the shower, fully clothed, and lets Eggsy howl his hurricane of grief, rage and agony into the shoulder of his bespoke, and gently lowers them both to kneel upon the puddling shower floor, beneath the relentless torrent of water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't murder me.


	7. Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 7. Confusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may combust of pain or confusion.

The first warning sign that your partner is being unfaithful, according to The Truth About Cheating by M. Gary Neuman, is when the notion pops into your head in the first place.

There would have to be some happenstance to cause such a thought, to bring this niggling idea to fruition. Such an idea would not appear out of nothing. And this unfortunate truth is why Harry Hart cannot seem to shake this hankering suspicion.

Eggsy Unwin is the love of Harry Hart's life. The younger man is utterly perfect, a pretty face with a heart of gold, as well as one of the best Kingsman proposals in near a century. It hadn't taken very long for feelings that weren't very platonic to develop within Harry for his protégé, however outrageous and inappropriate those feelings had seemed.

The two men had their fair share of drama, to put it lightly. Harry had been lying comatose in the Infirmary for a good portion of their acquaintance, and then, not long after he awoke, after a horrible row with Eggsy, he'd been shot in the head by a megalomaniac with a lisp in the middle of redneck USA.

That had put a damper on things, for a year. Particularly since Harry had woken up sans left eye in the headquarters of the American spy agency, Statesman, with a healthy dose of retrograde amnesia.

But Eggsy hadn't given up on him. He'd come back again, and again, until finally little Hamish the puppy had pulled the strings of Harry's memories back together again.

There's a shitfest in Cambodia, a dead nostalgic psychopath and an antidote for the Dancing Disease. Then, the surprise return of a robo-legged quartermaster and much-missed Lancelot, a newly rebuilt HQ and a consensually annulled marriage (Tilde, Crown Princess of Sweden, was ever so grateful to Eggsy for helping her ailing father gracefully abdicate). 

Finally, agonisingly, there were no more barriers that stood in their way. So two backstage passes to Elton fucking John later, Eggsy Unwin ends up back at Harry's place. And this is not the sort of mentor-proposal sleepover that had occured last time. Martinis were still brewed, and a breakfast scene still occured, but there were far more confessions of love and a deal of heavy petting involved. The fact that Eggsy Unwin continued to come home with Harry every day and night since, and he was now fully moved in, was just a happy coincidence. No more wasting time- they were Kingsman, and in Harry's lover's words 'who fuckin' knows when one of us will get shot in the head proper this time'.

So with all of that to consider, Harry was firmly in the belief that they could survive anything the world threw at them. But then again, he'd never expected any dilemma like this to occur. Not even in his most haunting, wildest nightmares.

Eggsy was always so attentive, and never once failed to shower Harry with affection and reassurance. A casual hand looped with his at work, stroking acroos Hary's knuckles, and always a kiss and cuddle for luck before every op. At home, the boy was even more attentive, to the point that Merlin now actually refused to check the monitoring cameras at random, complaining that the sight of such 'excessive adoration, yeh twats' was giving him headaches. And then, of late Eggsy had taken up cooking in his spare time, meaning there was no short of oddly healthy, yet delicious food in the cupboards. Shouldn't Harry be over the moon?

But M. Gary Neuman had taught him to see right through this glass window of false security. So unfortunately for the latest Kingsman chief, he was feeling anything but over the moon.

Because Harry Hart has a heartbreaking suspicion that Eggsy is cheating on him. 

"It's only possible explanation," he argues with subdued certainty to Merlin,as the Scot shakes his head incredulously in the guest chair in Harry's plush office.

"He spends all day glued to his phone-"

"Like every other millenial in existence," retorts the quartermaster, poking at his clipboard dismissively. "They're all glued to the bloody things."

"But Neuman, the author of the book on infidelity I'm reading-"

"Neuman can shove it where the sun don't shine."

"He might be organising something nice, for all yeh know," the tech wizard suggests reproachfully. "Is yeh anniversary coming up?"

"Was 3 months ago," Harry answers glumly. "He took me to watch Madame Butterfly." With front-row seats, no less.

"Now tha' don't sound like a man who's cheatin' on his boyfrien'," Merlin remarks, raising eyebrows knowingly. "Yeh worry too much, Arthur."

"My instincts are uncannily accurate thank you very much, Merlin," Harry responds, a hint of huffiness in his tone as he fiddles with a pen on his desk. "I wouldn't suspect something without reason."

"I bet he  _is_ planning somethin' wonderful, an' yeh gonna feel sick with guilt at doubtin' him," Merlin declares. "Tha' boy is utterly mad for yeh, yeh twat. He's probably plannin' on proposing."

Harry chooses to rebut this argument with the information that he had turned the house upside down, looking for a ring. And the fact that when Harry brought up the possibility over last night's pasta, his young lover had laughed, no hint of nerves in his tone, and suggested maybe one day, but not yet.

"You're an actual headcase, Harry," Merlin sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "For the last fookin' time, yeh boy isn't cheatin'. Now can I take some aspirin, and we get on with discussing the mission allocation for Mumbai?"

The concrete evidence comes several days later. As excruciating as the truth was, Harry simply had to know. He'd been taken for a fool before- he wasn't about to let it happen again.

When he hears Eggsy on the phone, calling someone 'love', his heart finally splinters in his chest. The bowling ball drops into his stomach, and Harry hovers outside the ajar office door, hand over his mouth to stop a cry escaping his clamped lips.

"Ta, darling. I'll see ya tomorrow, as planned? 11:30? Amazin'. See ya!"

The M. Gary Neuman had been right.

Eggsy was cheating on him.

Harry hovers around the house for the rest of the night, brushing off Eggsy's various attempts at advances with soft, subdue rebuttals. Whose lips were crushing against Eggsy's when Harry wasn't around, when thise very same lips wrapped around a forkful of spinach quiche across the table from him? Whose wit was making Eggsy chuckle to himself on his phone as he curled down one end of the couch, Harry sitting rigidly up the other? Whose love was making Eggsy's cheeks pinker, and his skin glow, like it never had before with Harry?

"Arthur?"

"Come in, Lancelot."

Roxy takes the seat Harry proffers, waiting patiently as the man himself takes his own seat behind his expansive mahogany desk.

"You asked to see me?" The brunette offers, eyebrows quirking imperceptibly in apparent confusion.

"Indeed," Harry replies, taking a moment to steel himself as he stares down at the grains of wood beneath his fingertips.

"This is difficult of me to ask you, Roxanne, but it has been giving me a fair amount of grief these past weeks. And as Eggsy's closest confidante, and best friend, I trust you will be able to aid me."

"Anything you need, Arthur." Roxy's tone has more than hint of concern into it, and Harry doesn't need to meet her hazel eyes to know she is utterly focused on him.

"Let me be brief," he sighs heavily, wishing his next words would not bring him so much aching agony.

"Is Eggsy having an affair?"

Roxy appears to be choosing her words carefully, and a calm kind of numbness settles over Harry. It's all the confirmation he needs, the final nail in his lover's coffin.

"He's not,-"

"Please, Roxanne, your silence says enough. You may be a wonderful asset to the Kingsman team, but when it comes to your loved ones, I see what Eggsy means when he says you cannot lie."

"Arthur, wait-" there's sheer panic in Roxy's eyes as Harry gets up from his chair.

"If you will excuse me, Lancelot. I have matters to attend to."

If only every step down HQ's halls did not feel as though Harry's legs were crumbling beneath him. If only every breath did not feel as though his lungs were stuck with thousands of needles as he strides on. If only the sheer suffering that wracked his body didn't hurt so much worse than when Valentine's bullet pierced his skull, as Harry stalks closer to the Galahad office. It's ten to eleven. If Harry catches Eggsy just before he leaves to see his mister, mistress, whoever they may be, it will give the boy several hours to collect his things from Harry's before Harry returns home for the night.

The first thing he had felt was sadness, just as Neuman had explained on page 263. Misery that he, Harry, was clearly not enough to satisfy the boy's needs, even as a traitorous voice within whispered it was to be expected. That his love would never be enough for someone so young and beautiful. That Eggsy had never loved Harry as much as Harry had loved him. The tears he had shed in private over some weeks, while Eggsy was half a world away, mourning what had and what could of been. 

Then, there was the wondering. The questioning of why the boy had strayed. What had Harry done, or not done, that was not enough for him? The constant thinking of how long it had taken the boy to meet someone who held his eye, who wasn't Harry, and if he loved them. Of exactly who had made Eggsy so withdrawn, engrossed in himself, yet putting on a sunny front for Harry, hoping he wouldn't notice.

And then, last of all, Neuman had warned there was anger. Anger that Eggsy would think him so gullible, an old fool to be taken advantage of. To have the audacity to expect kisses goodnight, and the same level of intimacy, when he was taking a dip in another's pond. And fury, but mostly with himself- for falling in love so deeply and wholly with someone who had been destined to destroy him.

"Hey babe." Eggsy looks faintly surprised to see him, standing at his office door. He steps back, allowing Harry to stride inside.

"I think we need to have a talk, Eggsy." Harry is surprised by how calm he sounds, despite the rushing cyclone of emotions inside of him, ripping through the fabric of his consciousness.

"Uh, yeah, I think we do too," Eggsy says a tad guilty, rocking back on his heels. Was he about to confess?

No. Harry wouldn't give him that courtesy. It was time to cut the cord. Then retreat, pull back before salt could be poured on his deep emotional wounds, and hope he would heal.

"Haz-"

"Eggsy, I know you've been having an affair."

"And quite honestly," Harry continues, tone still mild, "I don't want to know who with, or why. I just want your things out of my home by eight o'clock tonight. Are we clear?"

Why was his heart hammering so painfully, and his throat swelling constrictingly?

Eggsy stares, clearly dumbstruck. Before-

" _What in the actual FUCK_?!"

Harry's own anger swells exponentially at Eggsy's furious expression. "Don't play the fool with me, Eggsy. I know. You can't hide it, I'm not entirely oblivious-"

"Are you actually fucking serious?!" The younger agent shrieks, eyes slits, body rigid with indignance. "What the fuck?! You actually think I would do that to you?!"

_What?_

"You've been glued to your phone relentlessly," Harry splutters defensively, finding his flame. "I heard you talking to your mistress or mister, I don't know, last week, calling them  _darling_  for fuck's sake, you've been taking more pride in your appearance-"

"You're an actual fucking idiot, you know?!" Eggsy spits, grabbing Harry by his upper arms. "What the fuck."

Harry tries to shake Unwin off, but the boy's hands are vices. "Stop trying to deny it. Just get out-"

"I'm fucking  _PREGNANT_ , you massive wang!"

The oxygen is promptly sucked from Harry's lungs.

"You're what?" He manages, rather faintly, immobile.

"Yes," Eggsy's face is irritated rather than angry, but there's a slow, teary smile creeping across his face. "Pregnant, you fuckin' cockwomble. With your, our, child. Since April."

Eggsy's pregnant. Eggsy's fucking pregnant. His beautiful, beautiful unique boy, was just 3 months with child. The parts he'd spent so long convincing the boy to love, that he was no less of a man because of what lay between his legs- those pieces of Eggsy, pieces of Harry, had made something wonderful.

Oh my god, oh my god, a dream come true- it's a miracle. Their little miracle, nestled inside the fleshed walls of a womb, slowly blooming to life-

"If I've been on me phone a lot, it's cos I've been Googling like mad," Eggsy explains, eyes meeting Harry's beseechingly. "When I first did the test  I was mad scared, ya know- I was in fuckin' Osaka for tha' intel op, I called Rox an' cried my eyes out.

"I was freakin' out so bad, cos I didn't know if intersex people could even  _have_ kids- would the baby develop proper, be born ok? It was so fuckin' scary-"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Harry doesn't mean to sound accusing, but he's just had an atomic bomb dropped on him, quite frankly.  

"Cos I knew you'd freak out even more'n me, dickhead," Eggsy says pointedly, but there's not much bite in his words. "Ya worry enough as it is. Let alone a pregnancy in a womb tha's not sposed to be there- you'd spontaneously combust, you would."

And as shell-shocked as he is, truth does register in Eggsy's words. But there's still a question burning a hole in Harry's larynx.

"Then who were you calling darling on the phone?"

Perplexingly, Eggsy barks a laugh, smile stretching his mouth. "Darling is my gyno's last name, you twat." He rubs Harry's arm absently.

"Louise Darling, she specializes in intersex an' transgender pregnancies. She's been having appointments wif me every couple of weeks, to check up on Bean."

"Bean?" Harry quirks an eyebrow.

His young lover blushes, seemingly embarrassed. "S'just what I'vd been callin' the baby," he murmurs quietly. "Cos it's so small still. Like a li'l bean."

"An before ya ask, I've been cookin' a shitload of stuff cos' it's all good for the baby, see? Gives me the 'pregnancy glow' All the stuff I been cookin has lots of vitamins in it, an' folic acid, cos Bean needs loads of that-"

But the words die in Eggsy's throat as Harry pulls him in for a crushing cuddle.

It all makes sense, all of it. Every single detail, that Harry blew utterly out of proportion. He'd been so blinded by his own stupidity he hadn't seen what was right in front of him all along. What an absolute fucking fool he had been.

"I'm so sorry, my dear boy, for ever doubting you-"

"An' I'm sorry for not tellin' you, love." Eggsy's voice is muffled into Harry's shoulder, but the tearful emotion in his tone is evident.

After a long moment, the pair break apart, and concern clouds the younger man's sunlit features.

"Wait. Ya do want this, him or her, right?"

Harry drops to his knees without a sound, onto the lush dark carpet of HQ and kisses Eggsy's belly firmly through the fabric of his bespoke, clinging to his partner for dear life.

"There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that I want more than this," Harry says thickly, a solo tear sliding down his cheek, as Eggsy's hand caresses through his pomaded hair."

"It- Bean- is ours. Our little one, a little piece of you and me and I am going to love it and you forever, my dear, dear boy."

He's going to come to meet this Dr. Darling, and see his little Bean fluttering away on the ultrasound screen, hear the sound of it's heartbeat. He'll rub swollen ankles, and run out at all hours of the night to sate whatever weird and wonderful pregnancy cravings plague Eggsy. He will hold tiny, designer, cashmere onesies to his cheek, and imagine the feel of a tiny little body wearing them, who will soon be resting in his arms. He can hardly wait.

"I fookin' told you he wasn't, Harry," a familiar Scottish brogue declares smugly over the office's intercom. "Told yeh. But congratulations. I formally  reserve the title of Godfather."

"Noted, Merlin. Now do piss off."

But in fact, Harry isn't even bothered by the interjection, because all he can do is hold Eggsy close, and cry happy tears into his boyfriend's smiling, equally tear-streaked face. He isn't being cheated on. He's going to be a father.

Let's see what M. Gary Neuman has to say about  _that_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys liked it! Just tried to do something a little different.


	8. Impasse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 8: Impasse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Harry POV again!

There's a young man in Harry's room, and he doesn't know who he is.

A crisp, sharp suit, clearly bespoke, fits him impeccably. Some black rimmed glasses perch upon the young man's nose, and behind the clear, non-focal lenses- how odd, that someone should wear glasses when they don't have a vision problem- were a pair of bright green eyes. Eyes that clearly knew Harry, if the megawatt smile that accompanied was anything to go by.

"Harry!"

One would be foolish not to accept physical contact from someone so beautiful. Yet Harry is cautious. He awoke in this strange place, clearly far from home in London, surrounded by Americans. What did it matter to them who he worked for? Why were cowboys concerned with british lepidopterists? He'd been given naught of an answer when they banished him to this...room. It had reminded him ominously of a loony bin, with it's padded, white walls. His butterflies had brightened it up right away, when he requested some paper and pencils.

But because he still was unsure of where he was, and why he was there, Harry deemed it wise to decline any physical contact.

The young man whose embrace he has rejected seems rather put out. The older bald gentleman, who also wears non-focal glasses- so very strange- is more formal in greeting, which Harry accepts gratefully. Finally, someone with manners.

But as impressive as his visitors are, they do seem a bit confused as to who Harry is. Something about shoes, and a thing called Kingsman, which Harry has never heard of in his life. And he would never join the army, when he had his beautiful butterflies.

Eventually, the pair give up. The young man with the jaw that could cut glass slumps his shoulders, and leaves with the man with the clipboard. But not without a backwards glance, worried green eyes meeting Harry's, before he is alone again with his butterflies.

Harry would be lying if he claimed he had not spent much of the rest of the day pondering his strange visitors. He had been in this place for almost a year, according to his diary entries, and never had visitors before, apart from that rude young cowboy upstart and his far more polished female coworker.

Of course he was going to contemplate the visit. But thoughts of the green-eyed boy were more frequent than the clipboard man. Remembering the shock in his eyes when Harry didn't recognize him, the pain that had lanced through those youthful, chiselled features. And Harry definitely would've remembered someone who looked like  _that_.

The young man visits every day. Or Harry thinks so, it's so hard to keep track of time in his room. Eggsy, as the young man is known by, brings Harry gifts.

"See here, it's Holborn police station in London," the younger man points to the photo in the album he's brought Harry, meeting Harry's eyes with his captivating greens. "You was standin' right there," he taps a wall pictured "when I came out, cos I called in my Favour and you came and rescued me."

But wherever this police station is, Harry has never clapped eyes on it before in his life. So the young suited man named Eggsy tries again, with more photos.

"How bout this, eh? It's the tailor shop, Harry. Ya gotta remember that. S'where you got me t' meet ya after ya rescued me from me dickhead stepdad."

"I'm sorry, Eggsy," Harry says in earnest, patting the boy's sizeable shoulder sympathetically. "But I honestly don't remember."

Eggsy bows his head momentarily, setting his jaw. "S'alright," he replies, getting to his feet, picking up their finished cups of tea (he seemed to know exactly how Harry liked his, without even asking). "I'll come back tomorrow."

And he does.

Harry grows to anticipate these little chats of theirs. Though he may not remember Eggsy, the boy is a pretty face, and a wonderful conversation partner after so long in solitude. It does make Harry feel slightly guilty though, to be stringing the young man along when he really had no interest in 'getting his memory back'. He had no memories  _to_ get back. He was a lepidopterist, not a spy.

But if it means he gets to see Eggsy, he'll keep feigning the enthusiasm. Because he may not know him yet, but Harry would very much like to.

That is, until whoever is in charge of this padded prison of his tries to drown him. And quite honestly, as Harry's room is unceremoniously drained of water, and he gasps for air upon his bed, he realises no mere fancying is worth risking his life for.

"I want to go  _home,"_  he tells this Merlin chap resolutely, even as the Scottish man's face drops unhappily. Enough was enough.

And his captors acquiesce, surprisingly. After this year of convalescence, of trying to convince him he is someone he isn't, they're letting Harry go. Quite similarly to a butterfly, he muses cheerfully as he packs his few possessions.

Eggsy puts up a fight as soon has he finds out. He bursts into Harry's room like a small hurricane, pure emotion in his eyes as he begs, pleads with Harry not to go. And Harry almost lets him. But logic prevails, and with a handshake he wished was a hug, the sends the boy on his way. With a glance over his shoulder as always.

As he lies in his bed, hands folded over sheets, Harry contemplates his new life. One that would start tomorrow, when he walked out of his room,and into forever.

He just wished his departure didn't mean goodbye to Eggsy. Because, try as he might, in a ridiculously short amount of time Harry has become utterly enraptured with the young man. With the maturity on those broad young shoulders, despite a less than optimal upbringing. The witty humour and attentiveness the boy expressed. The curve of his plush lips, the slant of his nose, and of course, the emerald eyes that had captured Harry in the first place.

It sounded utterly ridiculous as he thought about it, lying there with only his own breath and his butterflies for company. How could he be falling in love with someone he didn't even know? Who made him want to stay here, despite his better judgement.

But as sleep takes him, and the fair face of Eggsy Unwin blurs with the unconscious mind, Harry decides that stranger things happen in this wild world.

For indeed, they did.  In a few short hours, a young man would burst in with a puppy in his arms. A gun would be brandished, an altercation would occur. The utterly ludicrous would become infinite, as the loose strings of Harry's memories were woven back together.

And Harry would remember it all, in stunning technicolour. A pair of the most beautiful and shocking familiar green eyes he had ever seen.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find me on tumblr under the name daddygraves.


	9. Strings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 9: Strings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably the crappiest one of the lot, but here we go.

There's a universal theory Harry read once. That every person in the world has an invisible string attached to them.

Like a spider's silk, the string would be trailed around wherever one went, and the people they interacted with would become irrevocably entwined in each others strings. The ones ones an individual spent the most time with would obviously become more entangled than those considered acquaintances, while strangers, who mighf be encountered just once, on a bus or in a grocery queue, would be lucky to be caught twice.

Some people might have hundreds, even thousands of people wound tightly in their invisible threads. And some may have only a select few that they unconsciously wrap a line of thread around at every interaction.

Harry is decidedly on the latter scale of the spectrum, if this theory is to be believed. He has no family left to speak of, and a circle of coworkers, few of whom he would consider friends. Of course, there are threads of targets and bystanders and all that- but if this thread theory is but a theory, Harry doesn't see why he can't simply brandish a pair of scissors and snip through some threads.

Threads tangle and untangle, people come and go. But outside Holborn police station, there's a tug. A tremor that runs down the length of Harry's thread, crossed and woven through so many places around the world, and strikes him right in the heart.

Because a young man with the world on his shoulders and a familiar last name has just swaggered smack bang into Harry's thread.

Harry doesn't expect this new addition to be of much importance. He takes the boy out for a drink, gives him a talking-to about his behaviour, and kicks the shit out of some locals. Nothing out of the ordinary, really.

But there's a flame in the bright green eyes sitting across from Harry in The Black Prince, as Eggsy Unwin spits fire and pride back at him. And it tells Harry that this boy is not like these others he has just knifed, glassed and beaten with an umbrella.

He has real potential. So ever so cautiously, Harry throws a thread (and a microphone) around the young man, and waits.

It doesn't take very long for another tug to pull down the string, and Harry suddenly just  _knows_  Eggsy needs him. An intervention and a fitting room later, and Harry introduces Lee Unwin's son to what could be a whole new life, if he succeeds. Which a little voixe inside him says he will. Another thread winds around them.

More time spent together, and more threads are intetangled, and woven and woven. An explosion sends Harry spuralling into unconsciousness, but the threads of another, a strong-jawed sad-eyed young man with a pug come to and fro, to and fro to his bed in the infirmary, as Harry lies none the wiser.

He awakes, and Eggsy is there. He waits in a train tunnel, and Eggsy is there. He makes martinis, and then breakfast, and Eggsy is there. A thread that Harry expected to make landfall once, gets wound again, and again, and again...

Strings that make Harry notice the curve of Eggsy's lip when he smiles his burning smiles, brigher than the midday sun. The deep green of a pair of eyes that lock with his in such a familiar fashion. The cut of a jaw, and blond-brown hair Harry can't help but want to touch, and a shoulder that  bumps with his as they walk the London pavement.

Strings that tie two souls together. Strings that bind two hearts together.   
Strings that no eye can see, yet no hand can break.


	10. Honour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 10: Honour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic idea is probably one of my personal favourites that i wrote for Inktober. I'm a sucker for some imagery, and flowers with meanings.   
> Hopefully this doesn't hurt too much!

The flowers are blooming, for the very first time.

Yellow tinted hyacinths, clustering in their bright bulbous bundles. White chrysanthemums and daffodils, planted side by side. Pockets of dusty pink gladiolus and blue hydrangea lie with petals peeping up to the spring sun, while snapdragons and statice blend and weave, the light breeze rustling tiny leaves. And amidst it all,  10 proud white lilies, arranged in what could vaguely be called a table setting. 

"D'you think they'd like it?" the shorter of the two suited men asks, voice unsure in the stillness of the countryside. 

"Of course," the taller reassures his companion, voice but a murmur. "It's beautiful, Eggsy."

Eggsy shrugs noncommitally, hands thrust deep into his pockets. No words are said, but communication still passes between the two men, silently, with nought but a glance and bodily posture. The walk over had been hushed, with little talk. But any noises from the brand new manse and all it's bells and whistles, hundreds of feet behind the men's backs were inaudible. This little field, at the very back of the property, was a tiny slice of quiet, far away from the chaos and fanfare. So the owner of each lily could sleep, undisturbed in the dark soil. 

"The statice are for remembrance," Harry ventures, gazing out into the field, framed by classically worn wooden fences. "And the snapdragon for graciousness and strength."

"The King Protea, interesting," he adds, looking to the younger man. "Yet I cannot think of a more appropriate flower to summarise Kingsman, as an organisation. Daring, resourcefulness, diversity,  courage; and transformation. Especially when it's planted so near to the daffodil, which conveys chivalry and regard."

"It means eternal life, too." Eggsy's tone is so quiet the elder man almost misses it, the blond staring hard at the flowers ahead, jaw twitching. 

Harry laid a gentle, cautious hand on the other agent's back. "Yes, Eggsy. That too."

"You've captured it all so magnificently. I never expected flower arranging to be up your alley, but as I once said-"

"Full of surprises, I know." Silence, with the noise of far off civilisation is the only thing heard for some moments, as both men remember. The days of toil in this very field, digging and planting, sweating and bleeding to come home covered in earth and mulch and pollen. And similar days of watching from newly glassed windows at a tiny figure in the distance, shovelling as though he could burrow his way to the centre of the earth, refusing any and every offer of help. A silent conversation that this place they stood upon was not for newcomers; only for them, the two men of flesh and blood. And the flowers, fertilised with the ashes of a victorian era mansion, a tailor shop, and each Kingsman Poppy Adams had blown to kingdom come. Including the one whose country roads had taken him home, finally, to the bittersweet chords of John Denver.

"Th' chrysanthemums are for loyalty, love for a cause." Eggsy's speech is tight, as though his throat is constricted. "Gladiolus for faithfulness, an' honour."

The younger man swallows hard, and Harry looks on with concern, maintaining his gentle grip.

"And the hyacinth, Eggsy?"

Tears finally shine in Eggsy's eyes, his broad, stocky frame shuddering with suppressed sobs. He hurriedly wipes the back of a hand across his eyes, as his voice breaks. "For forgiveness."

There's a soft comforting mumur from Harry, and Eggsy just crumples inwards, like a marionette with strings cut. Strong, capable arms hold up, and close, and Harry leans his chin on Eggsy's head as his young love muffles his raw, bloody grief, own hand clamped to his mouth. No words need to be said to express the rough-hewn, primitive pain the younger Galahad feels, the tremors of which wrack through his body. Harry already knows. The silent blame, the tidal waves of self-loathing, the sheer, spiking sorrow and violent smog of anger, all inbound and withheld. Because he lived it all, every last drop, twenty years ago. When his slight of hand, his lack of vigilance caused the death of a young man, whose ghost he saw in Eggsy's face every single day.

"Was distracted," Eggsy croaks with anguish, tears sheeting down his face, hand fisting in the fabric of Harry's bespoke. "I shoulda checked the fuckin' cab the  _second_  I got t' the lake- I shoulda been focused, I shoulda just  _stayed_  there, I was so fuckin' selfish when I coulda  _saved them-"_

"Enough." Harry's sharp tone slices clean through Eggsy's sob-laced apologies. Through the grey shadows that seemed to cling to Unwin's back everywhere he went, that had broken his new marriage and pentultimately tried to break the man himself. But Harry had pulled him from that icy lake of isolation once before. And he would do it again and again and again, for as long as it took. 

"Enough, Eggsy," the older man caresses his partner's soft hair as a fresh wave of tears beset the blond. "You have well and truly atoned for every single one of your sins, with this garden. 

"Roxy, Arthur, Percival, Merlin," Harry gestures with an arm to the bevy of bright, growing flora that lay before them. "They all rest easy, beneath their beautiful garden you created just for them. And each and every one knew  _it was not your fault_."

A gentle, kiss is laid upon a crumpled forehead. And Harry holds on steadily, firmly, as Eggsy's tears water the flowers blooming for his fallen comrades, in the soft breeze of a quiet green English field. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay flowers


	11. Seasons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 11: Seasons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea behind this fic is a really nice one that I've been dying to write. Hope you like it!

There's a yearning in autumn. Mourning the warmth, and the lives who fell like the leaves in a melody of orange, yellow and brown. Cold winds, and chapped hearts, slowly stacking the house of cards back up, piece by piece.

Eggsy in autumn is wit and jokes, but also quiet tears around corners when no one else is listening. A bowling ball of guilt carried around beneath that immaculate bespoke, game face slapped on so no one, not even the people closest to him realise he is crumbling.

But Harry knows. Harry sees the misery behind the laughs, the true source of determination behind the rebuilding process of Kingsman. And Harry is the one who finds Eggsy at his lowest, in the safety of their rented home, and holds him as he shatters. Tears for Roxy and the other Kingsman knights, for Merlin,for Brandon and his precious pug, JB. For all his sins, begging inbetween sobs for Harry, for god to forgive him for his mistakes, that led to so much destruction.

Eggsy in autumn is a glass man- everything looks shiny and wonderful on the outside, but if he drops, he will break. But he finds the strength to hold Harry up too, when gospel music makes older knees go shaky, and a single gunshot rips Harry from sleep, screaming. His young love wipes the sweat from his brow, and sings sweet nothing until Harry surrenders back to sleep.

In winter there's redemption.

Winter and its freezing kisses of snow and ice, with festivities that no one feels much like celebrating, after the year they've had. Plus HQ 2.0 isn't even close to finished yet, the tailor shop is finished, but none of Kingsman's several new employees, poached from the FBI, CIA, MI5 and various other organisations have been around long enough to form real bonds. So Harry spends Christmas alone. Except for Eggsy. With snowflakes dusting his shoulders and cheeks flushed pink, numb with cold, putting freezing toes on Harry's back in bed. Grey skies that make green eyes pop against all the white, rugged up against the chill. A bleak pallor still hangs over them both, but Michelle Unwin's Christmas cooking and Daisy's happy shrieks manage to chase away the gloom, even just for a little while. Especially when just after New Years, a cyber-legged Scotsman walks back into HQ one morning without warning, accompanied by a hulking cowboy, demanding to know where his office was and to give him his bloody clipboard back.

It's the first time Harry's seen Eggsy genuinely laugh since before Kentucky. And then they all burst into tears, with poor Tequila caught in the midst of an unforgiving group hug. The world seems a lot more palatable with the knowledge that Merlin was still in it.

Once they finally get over the unexpected return of the resident tech whiz, spring wafts around. Thing that went wrong last year have been buried, and from the ashes born anew.

Time might not heal all wounds, but it does allow for processing, for grieving, for acceptance. So Harry buys Eggsy a plane ticket to Stockholm, because the boy hadn't the courage to do it himself, and tells him, genuinely, honestly, to go and finalise the divorce. The heart gives in to commonalities, the fickle thing. Because the wordless, raw understanding of each other's emotions, each other's pain may have draw Eggsy and Harry together, like moths to a flame. But this understanding also broke many other things- trust, fidelity. The heart of a Swedish princess.

It's slightly scary, sending a young lover off to meet with his ex. Harry does worry that these newly budding petals of Eggsy's will be chapped again by frost. But Tilde agrees. So when Eggsy comes home at the end of the week, Harry sits on the sofa and strokes his lover's delicate blond locks with one hand, Hamish's silky fur with the other, and listens. To how the princess and the spy drank their way through a good portion of Sweden's best wine as they signed the divorce papers, hugged, cried and woke up with horrific hangovers.That shotgun wedding built on glass and misconceptions, on selfish motives and agendas, replaced with true understanding and a vow of lifelong friendship. Because true strength is not pushing something broken to the very edge, but recognising when it's time to give up a long dead ghost. Love, but not in that way, from both fronts. And more than a bit of relief from the King and Queen, who Harry he  _knew_  didn't approve from the start, but feigns surprise when Eggsy announces this fact. Because sometimes, words need cushions.

But that trip, though heartrending, seems to only fertilise the tender fronds sprouting from Eggsy. He throws his heart and soul into Kingsman, even more so than before- but a different kind of dedication to the solemn, teeth gritting slog of months prior. This is effortless, joyful, honouring the memories of those fallen as they would want to be remembered. And hands that make Harry's coffee just right, in his favourite mug, steaming for him each morning on his desk. Harry Hart sees the young man he picked up from Holborn police station again, new and improved, as the puzzle pieces fall back into place.  This Eggsy has a flicker of his spark back, a matchstick in a tunnel.

Summer, glorious summer. New faces, old faces. New mansion, old location, with a beautiful memorial fountain inlaid with a certain logo. Old Harry and old Eggsy, but also new ones, blended together like coffee and milk, until none could tell where the old or new began. Maybe time does heal all wounds, because Eggsy  _shines_ , almost so brightly Harry's eyes hurt. The past, carried with him every single day, but learnt from, grown from, the fuel that pushes the boy to take that extra mission, fire that extra shot, push  _harder_. And to come home to Harry each time, sing in the shower, leave the bedcovers messy, and live. Truly live.

Because each burning step uphill, every setback, every heartbreak; every laugh, every tear, every breath or heartbeat;  in autumn, in winter, in spring and summer; solidifies what Harry already knows. And what Merlin, Tequila and eventually all of Kingsman's newly forged knights have been groaning to Harry about.

"Eggsy?"

That strong jaw turns to face him in their kitchen, sleeves rolled to elbows, halfway through the washing up. There's a tiny dot of pasta sauce on the younger man's cheek, and Harry absently rubs it off with his thumb.   
  
"I love you, my dear boy."

A toothy smile that turns Eggsy's lips in the way Harry knows they do, just for him. "I know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Harry fell in love with Eggsy through the seasons~ *collective awwww*


	12. Instrument

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 13: Instrument.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That ficlet where Eggsy sings. Cheesy, I know.

The Kingsman pub crawl was going as swimmingly as some knights' vision, by this stage. But by all accounts, everything was well. No fights with patrons had ended with gobsmacked drunkards hitting the floor, and no villains had sprung out of nowhere to take advantage of the fact Britain's best spies were all in one place, and utterly sozzled. 

Some utterly foolish genius (probably Lancelot) had elected to send an email to all individuals in Kingsman's employ, and invite them all to 'spontaneous workplace drinks'. Because saving the world was rather sobering, and alcohol was a long-favoured coping mechanism of the Kingsman organisation. And because after Kentucky, the destruction of the original HQ, Cambodia and the shock return of a Scottish tech whiz and aforementioned knight, Harry really had a quite a lot to be drinking about. 

That, and one other reason. It's half past midnight, Bors is out cold next to Harry, nose nodding dangerously close to his abandoned pint, and the bar is utterly empty apart from the rest of the Kingsman employ who had saved the date. Who it seems, if the shouts and hoots around Harry are anything to go by, are halfway between comatose and catastrophe. Percival is determinedly belting out a 90's pop ballad with Lancelot to the jukebox, despite her crutches -'WE MATCH', Roxy had pointed out to Merlin earlier in the night, gesturing to their common characteristic; leg injuries, albeit a landmine had ensured Merlin's were a little worse off. The Scot is engaged in raucous conversation with Kay and Gawain about the latest rugby match at the sleek table next to Harry's, whacking his fist on the table as he delcares that Scotland will surely triumph in the next match. Gareth is grabbing the next round at the bar, Geraint is determinedly skulling the last of his pint, cheered on by Lamorak, and Bedivere is taking a nap nearby. If anything, this little gathering looks to be nothing more than a bunch of rowdy businessmen, out for a night on town after a tough week in whatever boring desk job they endured.

Harry shouldn't be so sombre, with the comical events unfolding right before his eyes, like Tristan's impression of Merlin and his clipboard, or Percival's dire attempt at dancing. The past year had been a real uphill battle, even moreso for Harry himself, as the head of an organisation struggling to pick itself up off the floor and start again. Normal work as a Kingsman had been draining- what he had endured for the past year, if Harry was honest with himself, was nothing short of psychological and emotional torture.

But it was all done now. The empty seats at the Round Table had ben filled, the mansion rebuilt. Yet Harry doesn't feel the contentment that usually accompanies copious amounts of alcohol, as he reclines in the slightly grubby seats of some oscure pub he didn't notice the name of, staring into the depths of his half-downed pint. 

"Whassup, Haz?"

A familiar broad frame slumps down in the booth seat with Harry, giving him a gentle elbow to budge up. This rouses the sleeping Bors, who jerks upright mid-snore, blinking wearily, a bubble of beer foam stuck to the tip of his nose. 

"Hello, Eggsy," Harry manages, meeting eyes with the resident Galahad, who gives a lazy, relaxed smile in return. He takes a decidely more liberal sip of his forgotten pint. 

"Why're ya so glum for, eh? S'ya night off, ya prick. Loosen up for us," Eggsy jibes, the effect of who knew how many drinks loosening his hackney speech further. Viridian eyes, with no trace of the shadows that had lurked within for months, and just the right amount of colour blushing those sculpted cheeks. Eggsy's top buttons of his standard white dress shirt are popped, bespoke jacket long since discarded. Toned, forearms emerge from messily rolled-up sleeves, with the lightest dusting of hair. 

"Just tired, I'm afraid," Harry returns modestly, tearing his eyes away from his former protege with some difficulty. Because Harry might be tired, and more than a little inebriated, but he sure as hell is not blind. And Gary 'Eggsy' Unwin, who's firm, capable hand claps harry's shoulder reassuringly, has never been more inexplicably beautiful than he is right now. 

And that unavoidable truth, as Eggsy wiggles his way out of the booth and goes to cheerily accost Roxy, is the root of Harry's melancholy spirit. 

 Eggsy has never been more available. The boy had no sooner become a married man, to newly coronated Swedish Queen Tilde, darling of Scandanavia, than a scandalous divorce had been announced. The princess, as it turned out, had been seeking to allow her seriously ill father to abdicate with dignity. And Eggsy had been a cog in her well-oiled plan to allow such a thing to happen. 

"T' be honest, I wasn't even that upset," Eggsy had confessed to Harry one night in Kingsman's rented office complex, as the news of the premature split broke on worldwide media. The boy had swilled his martini pensively, considering the olive spiked on a toothpick. "Wasn't too keen on getting married anyway. Sorta did it cos' I felt bad after the whole rash thing."

And Harry had tried so very hard to not let his helium hopes grow any higher that night, as the stars sank, and Eggsy confessed tearfully he loved Tilde, but never in  _that_ way.

Oh the heart was a fickle, fickle instrument. It had taken a gunshot wound to the head for Harry to truly understand what the feelings he harboured for his Lancelot proposal truly meant.  But it was so very hard, when the one thing you love more than anything, more than butterflies, good whisky (without the e) and good manners, is sitting right across from you, utterly oblivious to the fact that he was the last thought in Harry's brain when Valentine pulled that trigger. Because who in their right mind would confess their love for a young man, no matter how lovely, when said young man had just admitted he had a girlfriend?

Not that it mattered now. Eggsy is a 25 year-old divorcee, happy as larry, and their relationship was going from strength to strength. Harry could honestly say that despite only being acquainted for just over two years, he feels he knows Eggsy, and vice versa, similarly to the level of understanding he and Merlin had garnered in close to thirty-five years of companionship. 

 Yet despite this all-time high, Eggsy still feel so...unobtainable. Nevermind the enormous age gap -Harry was  almost old enough to be the boy's grandfather-, nor the perils of romancing a colleague, should things go awry. Harry was certain he was more likely to be shot in the head by Richmond Valentine again than have Eggsy develop romantic inclinations towards him. 

The chant of 'Eggsy, Eggsy, Eggsy!' pulls Harry from his solemn stupor, and he directs his attention to the small linoleum dancefloor space just in time to see Eggsy being shoved towards the proferred microphone, depsite many protests, by his traitorous colleagues. Laughing, despite his embarrassment, the boy takes it.

"Alrigh', alrigh', ya wankers. But none o' this shit. Ya got a guitar at all back there?" he directs to the barkeep, who disappears momentarily into the back room. But reappears nonetheless, clutching a battered Yamaha, much to the excitement of the knights, who whoop and whistle. 

A stool seems to materialise out of nowhere, along with a microphone stand, which Eggsy accepts gratefully, plonking himself down on the seat. Harry watches with focused interest as practiced hands fiddle with the tuning keys for several moments. 

Eggsy could play the guitar? The boy truly  _was_  full of surprises, as Harry had proclaimed on the very first day of their meeting. But Galahad's talents were seemingly not just limited to musical performance, as the small gathering of sophisticated yet drunken spies in a deserted bar in Kentish Town were about to find out. 

"Anyway, here's Wonderwall." Eggsy giggles, and starts to play.

The first few strums of the familar chords send more cheers and cackles around the gathered Kingsmen, who cease all tipsy chatter to listen ardently to the Oasis hit. 

_"Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you-"_

Holy mother of Christ. Not only was Eggsy one of Kingsman's finest recruits, with a spotless portfolio and a dedication that only came along once in a century. The boy could play like a professional, and he could  _sing_. It truly was unfair. But when several knights begin to sing along, off key and out of tune, it takes everything Harry has in him to not scream at them to shut the actual fuck up. Because Eggsy's voice was that of which Harry imagined would accompany the sweet, white embrace of death. The clear melody of raw talent that spilled from capable lips as Eggsy continues on the verse.

Until entrancing malachite eyes fit themselves with Harry's. 

" _I don't believe that anybody, feels the way I do, about you now."_

Harry can't help but break the gaze, eyes immediately finding his glass and draining it. It was a coincidence, you fool, his conscience shrieks internally, even as his heart begs him to consider otherwise. It wasn't possible. No. 

" _There are many things that I, would like to say to you, but I don't know how."_

Harry dares to sneak a glance upwards, and almost shrinks down in his seat when Eggsy's green eyes bore into his again. Was it the Guiness, or was there a sheen of regret, or even sadness in Eggsy's eyes? For God's sake, he was fifty four, and the sounds of a young man's voice had Harry grasping at song lyrics like straws.

" _Cos maybe-"_

He can't bring himself to look away, he's caught, like in deer in those bright green, mesmerising headlights-

" _You're gonna be the one that saves me-"_

Couldn't Eggsy look at someone else, for Pete's sake? All this intense staring was giving his inhibited heart far too uch fodder to make stupid decisions. 

_"And after all-"_

Sing for me, Eggsy. Sing for me forever, sing to me only. Was it just Harry or it was awfully hot in the room?

" _You're my wonderwall."_

Outside, now. Harry's brain finally turns the cogs to make a rational decision, and in a heartbeat, he's striding towards the back door of the pub. Fresh night air in a dark alleyway, and cool, slightly grimy bricks to calm his hot skin, and the heart that was beating far too rapidly for a man of his age.

Oh the heart was a fickle instrument, alright. Because it played in perfect harmony with a guitar, to the tune of 'Wonderwall'.

 

 

 

the heart is the most fickle instrument of them all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Anyway here's Wonderwall" is my favourite musical meme.


	13. Foolish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 13: Foolish
> 
> Credit to elletromil and zombiisheep for the fic idea.
> 
> This fic takes place in an alternate crack universe, where Roxy came with Eggsy and Merlin to the Statesman, and Whiskey is the steretypical yeehaw drunk uncle, Tequila the debauchery aficionado and Merlin and Ginger are the platonic besties and mum and dad of all of them. Which I guess makes Champ the grandpa!
> 
> Here goes

Eggsy was never into cowboys as a kid. 

Like any boy whose dad was a soldier, he'd been starry-eyed over plastic toy guns and figurines of macho, muscled marines. His poor mum had to positively wrestle off his favourite, threadbare camo-print shirt off him each day before bed. And even then, he'd sneak it out of the washing basket and yank it back on when she wasn't looking. 

So cowboys weren't very high on his interest list, and naturally, Eggsy never expected to meet one. London was running kind of low on gunslinging, boot wearing Southerners, as it happened. And even when Eggsy pulled off his transformation from rough chav to sleek sav, he thought gentleman spies who saved the world from certain doom and got to kiss princesses were as far as it went.

But as he'd smugly announced to Richmond Valentine, while the megalomanic lay drowning in his own blood, this ain't that kind of movie bruv. Kingsman life was anything but normal, so when HQ got blown sky high by the Golden Circle last month, Eggsy, Merlin, and yesterday, Rox, had ended up becoming quite well acquainted with some cowboys- Statesman, as it turns out, were America's resident breed of spy. All named after alcohol, in typical Yankee fashion. 

He's still not that big a fan of cowboys. Especially when said cowboys decide lassoing him and the not-dead object of his unrequited affections together is a perfectly reasonable course of action.

"I'm telling you, Merlin, I'm perfectly fine to be cleared for active duty!" Roxy argues, ponytail swinging wildly as she and the Scottish quartermaster spar yet again over a constant source of argument- her moon-booted leg.

"Lancelot," Merlin returns calmly, not even bothering to look up from his clipboard at Ginger's desk. "Yeh've been out of the infirmary for less than a week, which yeh wouldn't've been in if yeh'd stayed in hospital in London, like the doctor ordered. But no, yeh had to charge onto the first bloody plane t' Kentucky, and caused another stress fracture in yeh leg due t' the cabin pressure."

"Roxy, he's right, honey," Ginger sighs, tapping away at her own computer. She's champing at the bit to start the competition with Merlin- prior to the current argument, there'd been a text ping up on Eggsy's glasses from Roxy.  _Merlin + Ginger having a hacking competition at 2pm. Let's go?_   Any form of distraction while they searched for the Golden Circle was more than welcome- even handlers need time off. 

"What was I supposed to do, convalesce in my hospital bed while you go off and hunt down the people that destroyed Kingsman, and killed our colleagues?" the female agent retorts hotly, as both Merlin and Eggsy exclaim "Yes!" frustratedly.  Eggsy loves his best friend, he really does. But he and she both know she's fighting an uphill battle, even if he's the only one willing to admit it.

"What's all this here commotion?" Champ, Statesman's agent-in-chief, moseys into the room, twirling a cigar expertly between his fingers. Two figures follow him in- Agent Whiskey, moustachioed and booted, and Kingsman's own Harry Hart, shaven and suited. 

The sight of Harry, living and breathing, walking around unhindered, still knocked the breath from Eggsy's lungs. Too recently, he'd still been wallowing in the swamp-like sludge of unresolved emotions concerning Harry's apparent death. The crushing guilt, the excruciating vice of grief, the sickening self-loathing for his own stupidity, the memory that their last interaction was an argument-

Even now, it made his stomach knot. 

"Champ," Roxy acknowledges the silver-haired Southerner briskly. "Please-"

"I wouldn't bother if I were you, darlin," Whiskey drawls, leaning himself against the nearby whitewashed wall. The deep brown eyes beneath the brim of his hat survey the scene unfolding with vague amusement. 

"Harry here has just spent the past minute finishin' convincin' Champ here that you ain't going anywhere. Not 'til that here leg," he flicks his eyes to the moon boot strapped over Roxy's grey paintsuit. "Be fully healed up."

But before Roxy can unleash her wrath on Harry, Eggsy chimes in, tearing his eyes from the elder Kingsman finally. 

"Harry's right, Rox, s'what I've been tryna tell ya. Ya only just got here, ya not fully healed, all ya gonna do is f-"

"Of course you take  _his_  side!" Roxy snaps back at him, indignation and fury clear in her eyes. Oh shit- he should know by now when to pick his battles with her. Hurricane Roxy was  _not_  an experience Eggsy enjoyed.

"What's tha supposed to mean?" Eggsy retaliates uncertainly, sneaking a sideways glance at Harry, who is also regarding Roxy with apprehension.

"Oh don't play coy now, boys," Whiskey purrs, raising an eyebrow smugly. Suddenly, the room seems a little too airtight, and far too warm. "You don't think we didn't all see your cute lil' reunion in Harry's room?"

"And can I just say," Agent Tequila, who has so far been silent, sprawled in a chair in the corner, contributes. "Ya'll shoulda see your here face when I pulled up that curtain on Galahad Sr.'s room, when ya first got here." He flicks his chin in Eggsy's direction, before leaning back to fish around in his  jacket pockets for chewing tobacco.

Eggsy and Harry simultaneously erupt into indignant protests.

"What on earth-"

"Oh fuck off, all of ya-"

"Merely happy to see my protege-"

"I just found out he was alive, I fink my response was pretty appropriate-"

"He has a girlfriend-"

Not anymore, he didn't. Eggsy's gut gives a funny twist, but he quickly returns to the issue at hand. But with reflexes faster than the human eye, Whiskey's whip appears in the cowboy's hand. And Eggsy realises a second too late what's about to happen, as he and Harry stand side by side, still spluttering feeble excuses.

It all happens so quickly. The tight cord of the rope yanks the pair of men together instantaneously, so quickly the two bonk heads, and as they teeter on the spot momentarily, a previosuly unseen cupboard door is flicked open by Tequila. Eggsy and Harry only have a second to yowl in protest as a shove sends them toppling into the confines of a dark Statesman broom closet, and the secure click of a lock is heard on the other side.

There's a second of stunned silence. And then the pair of spies begin wriggling and hollering with all their might, bumping against all manner of cleaning items and the door.

"Pipe down in there, ya'll," Champ's voice filters through the light-light crack near the floor, as raucous laughter can be heard. "Merlin and Ginger be about to start the contest."

"Let us the fuck out!" Eggsy roars, as Harry adds peevishly "I second that motion."

"Short answer; no," Whiskey's tone can be heard now, and Eggsy can just picture the fucker inspecting his fingernails casually. "We're all sick to high heaven of ya'll's pining and lovelorn looks. I can't imagine what poor Merlin and Roxy here been having to endure, if we've only had just a taste of it these past few weeks."

The muffled sound of Merlin and Roxy agreeing  with enthusiastic despair only incenses Galahads Jr. and Sr. more. 

*******************************************************************************************

There's dead silence in the room, punctuated only by the furious clatter of computer keys being slammed by speedy fingers. Merlin and Ginger are hunchbacks over their keyboards, as the Statesman and Roxy look on nervously.

"How long d'you think it'll take them to give up and just admit it?" Roxy wonders aloud, as muted shouts and thumps still sound against the securely locked door. 

"A good while yet, I should think," Champ chuckles, leaning his elbows on the back of Ginger's chair as he squints at the computer screen. 

"Don't worry Ginger, ya'll gonna make mincemeat of this Scottish chap."

"Ha," Merlin mutters under his breath, face lit with almost evil glee as he determinedly chips his way through NASA's firewall. 

**********************************************************************************************

So no only has Eggsy found himself buddy-buddy with a bunch of cowboys, where his best friend turns up less than a month after an entire mansion fell on her, with nothing but a broken leg to show for it. He finds himself face to face with a very not dead Harry fucking Hart, quite literally, shoved into a very cramped, dark cupboard, where a bottle of cleaning fluid is slowly leaking into his bespoke. Fan-fucking-tastic. 

His shoulder's starting to get sore from ramming it against the sturdy, unmoving door. But nothing could compare to the sheer shattering feeling of when he'd found Harry alive, in that white padded room, and no trace of recognition had flitted across the slightly lined face of his former mentor.

Yep. Eggsy's in love with Harry. Of course he fucking is, as if shit couldn't get more complicated. Especially since he has, or used to have,  a fucking girlfriend. But more on that later.

"Eggsy, enough."

"No!" Eggsy shouts at Harry utterly focused on ramming the door down with every ounce of strength he had left in him. He couldn't stay in here with Harry, he couldn't, it was too difficult-

"Eggsy, you are going to hurt yourself." Harry's tone is somehow so much calmer than it had been just moment earlier. "An injury would mean you were off the assignment, which we cannot afford. Please, stop."

Eggsy pauses, considering Harry's words. Giving the door one final whack, having no effect, he leans back against some very uncomfortable shelving. Which is hard to do, considering every movement he makes brings Harry with him, due to the sheer lack of space.

"They'll give it up eventually," Harry reassures him. But the elder spy seems ever so careful not to reveal any particular inclination or otherwise towards Eggsy.

Hmm.

*******************************************************************************************

"Ya'll want some dinner?" Tequila declares to the small gathering some hours later, still huddled around the computers. "This shit is takin' ages, makes a man work up an appetite."

"You've literally done nothing, Tequila," Ginger exclaims, but there's no bite in her words. "Do you want to swap with me and have a crack at finding NASA's correspondence with aliens?"

"Naw, I'm fine," Tequila brushes her off, getting to his feet. "They'd delete all that shit anyways."

"Ya'll want KFC?"

There's a chorus of 'yeah', and the youngest Statesman saunters out. 

Champ exhales quietly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "He's got smarts when he's on a mission, but that kid's brains wouldn't amount t' a hill o' beans."

"Funny that," Merlin interjects, completely focused on the task at hand. "Ginger's tech skills amount to about the same."

"Oh I cannot  _wait_ to wipe the floor with you, Merlin," the woman shoots back in good humour. "After the files I had to extract from the Pentagon last year, this is a goddamn cakewalk."

*******************************************************************************************

"Merlin." Harry's voice is loud enough within the tight confines of the cupboard that Eggsy is sure the tech whiz would've heard them.

"Not now, 'Arry. I'm busy. Stop texting me with your glasses, I'm tryin' to win a bottle of whisky."

"Merlin," Harry draws out the 'i', sounding almost whiney. "You wouldn't leave your oldest friend locked in a cupboard, would you?"

"I'm sure he would, given the amount of whinging you saddle him with about Eggsy." Whiskey japes.

_What?_

"Oi," Eggsy cries, straightening and staring Harry down accusingly. The older man has the decency to look slightly guilty, under the limited light the door frame provided. "Why're ya whinging 'bout me for?"

"It's not whinging," Harry protests somewhat feebly, staring at the ground, but Eggsy's right pissed off now.

"If anything, it's me who should be doing the whingin', eh? I'm the one  _you_  left behind, to go play the hero here!"

Harry's face changes, and Eggsy can just tell the taller man's hackles are finally up.  _Good. Let him suffer for a bit too_.

"If you'd simply done as I asked, Eggsy, and completed all the tests,  _as instructed_ , we wouldn't've had a row. But to suggest I had your father stuffed, inside my house?!-"

Eggsy doesn't give a shit that he's interrupting, and that will only add fuel to Harry's already dangerous tone. "I said tha' shit in anger, bruv! Ya called me back with that cab like a dog on a fuckin' leash. And what 'bout ya sayin' that everything ya did for me was 'bout my dad anyways?"

He's sailing into dangerously emotional territory here, but Eggsy has really lost all his fucks to give. "Didn't I mean anything t' you?"

"You could  _not_   _be further from the truth."_

Harry's icy tone makes Eggsy revert to sulky silence. 

"This is utterly fucking ridiculous," Harry sighs a short while later, rubbing his temples with both hands. His elbow nearly catches Eggsy in the face, and the slow sounds of enthusiasm and can be heard outside in the room, cheering Merlin and Ginger on. There's also the smell of fried chicken, wafting deliciously into the cupboard, and Eggsy's stomach lets out a rumble.

"Do you remember our breakfast, the day before your final test?" Harry asks suddenly, looking at Eggsy with interest. All anger has melted from his chestnut eyes.

"'Course I do," Eggsy mumbles, over the growing hubub outside. That morning was one of the few precious memories he had with Harry, and not one he was likely to forget. 

"M'so sorry, Harry. 'Bout your house. It's all my fault."

"Nonsense, Eggsy," Harry placates him, even as the younger man protests. 

"All ya furniture, Mr Pickle,-"

"Houses and antique furniture, even butterflies," Harry argues patiently, yet determinedly. "Theyre are all replaceable,. Mr Pickle is ingrained firmly into my memory, too. Even if he isn't sitting in my lavatory, he will always be in my heart."

There's silence again, apart from cheering, as both men consider Harry's words. "Now what I truly couldn't bear, would be being locked inside that awful padded room for the rest of my days, with no one to rescue me. As terrible as it sounds, without everything we've lost, you never would have found me again. So in a way, I must be grateful for all these tragedies. Because without them, I may never have remembered."

"The thought of not remembering such a large portion of my life- Kingsman, Melrin, you-" an unconscious shudder wracks Harry, jostling Eggsy in the small space. "It's unimaginable."

"But even if I didn't know you, during my period of amnesia..." Harry's voice trails off, and Eggsy meets his gaze again. "I wanted to."

Was there some hidden message behind Harry's words, that's flying right over Eggsy's head?

Maybe his should just come out with it. His conscience is nudging him every so gently, trying to build a scrap of confidence within him. When was Eggsy ever going to get the chance to tell Harry how he felt, in a private, dark cupboard, ever again? 

Harry's arm knocks something, which makes a metallic souding rattle. Fumbling around in the dark corner of the cupboard, he suddenly cautiously brandishes a crowbar, of all things. 

"Finally."

But as Harry squeezes his arm past to begin his assault on the cupboard door, something makes Eggsy catch the elder spy's muscular arm in hand.

"Harry, wait!"

The taller of the two freezes, looking to Eggsy questioningly. 

"Yes?"

It all just comes out in a fumbling, mad rush, like water out of a spilt jug. 

"Look this is really fuckin' awkward an' weird an- oh fuck it, I'm in love wif' ya and I don't know what-"

"What?" Harry's face is a beacon of astonishment. "What on earth?!- Your girlfriend?- you have-"

"No actually, I don't." Eggsy's breathing is shallow, and his palms are shaking, but he clenches them into fists. If he doesn't get this all out and over with now, he never will. He'll never be able to move on if he doesn't shoot straight and sharp, and tell this stupid, oblivious man how arse over tits for him Eggsy is. "We broke up, like we shouldve done months ago. Because she was only ever a distraction, as bad as that sounds, cos' you were dead, an' I was tryin' to get over you-"

Harry immediately tries to interject with urgency, and Eggsy is suddenly glad the chaos outside over the hacking race means no one can hear them. 

"No. Shut up, ok, shut up. I'm trying to tell ya how I feel, I've been in love with ya since ya bailed me out of Holborn, if I dont say this now I'll never get the courage to do it again, because ya a tall, _gorgeous_  fucking spy, who's literally sex on legs, I know ya don't love me back, this'll be real awkward once we bust open that door,  but I get it it's all good, I'll leave you be, cos ya in love w me dad or somethin-"

" _Don't you dare"._

Harry Hart, chest heaving, spits, and shocks Eggsy into silence with nothing but a burning look. Something that vaguely sounds like a squeak leaves Eggsy's chest, and he's abruptly aware of how close they have been, this whole time in the matchbox of a cupboard, chests touching.

"Don't you  _dare_  go and leave me again, Gary Eggsy Unwin. Because, if you would  _ever_ let me finish, I am not in love with your father."

Eggsy's bewilderment is clearly plastered upon his face, because Harry sighs heavily, and with frustration, ignoring the apparent stadium full of football fans hollering outside. He lays those massive, elegant hands of his on Eggsy's shoulders for emphasis. 

"I am hopelessly and utterly in love with  _you_ , you gigantic pillock". 

Oh my  _God_. This had to be a dream, Eggsy thinks faintly, as this beautiful ray of numbness fills his brain. He was dreaming, he must be, as a slow smile slides across his face.

"Is this the bit where we kiss, then?"

******************************************************************************************

"Go, Merlin, go!" Roxy screeches, hands pressed to her mouth in tights fists of anticipation, as Merlin and Ginger thunder down the home stretch of their race, hands a blur of slamming keys.

"Geddim', Ginger!" Champ howls, Tequila and Whiskey echoing the sentiments of encouragement, as both quartermasters clatter away, slit-eyed and teeth-gritting.

"Yes!" The choppy bob shoves her roller chair away from the desk, arms raised in victory, and is immediately drawn into a jumping circle of victory by her Statesman colleagues, whooping and hooting. Merlin graciously bows his head, Roxy placing a comforting arm on his shoulder, as the two amusedly observe the scene of celebration. Until a lightbulb goes off in the resident Lancelot's head.

"Time to let them out I think," she utters, and in a few short steps, arrives at the cupboard door, and flicks the latch open. 

Galahad Jr. and Sr. emerge from the confines of the dark cupboard, with just as much grace as they entered it. But this time, their embrace, which makes both men topple to the floor humiliatingly, seems utterly consensual. 

And now it's Roxy and Merlin's turn to join the celebrations, as their best friends pick themselves off the floor, but link hands, smiling a little bashfully. 

"You owe me a hundred quid, Ginger!" Merlin announces with relish, reclining in his chair. 

"Not 'til I get my bottle of this supposedly amazing scotch whiskey, minus the e, for kicking your ass in hacking."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeehaw


	14. Haunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 14: Haunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of an eerie one, this one. Or at least I hope it is, I was going for that vibe.
> 
> An accompanying song to listen to whilst reading might be 'Haunting' by Halsey. 
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments.

He wakes, bathed in tepid sweat, the whisper of his name from a voice still ringing in his half-conscious ears. The curtains in the townhouse slowdance with the midnight breeze, which whispers down the silent, unlit hallway and breathes into each room. 

His rapid breathing tempers, and Eggsy flips over his pillow, relishing the cooler touch of the cotton cover. But every time he closes his eyes, another creak in the house has them snapping open, fully alert. As though long legs are treading the floorboards again, softly, soundlessly, and a broad-shouldered silhouette will appear in the bedroom doorway. 

It's no wonder he sleeps with a pistol beneath his head, when the house groans and creaks a name that isn't his. 

Eggsy can't seem to shake them, these stupid fucking hallucinations. The pseudo-figure that stands behind him when he walks in front of the bathroom mirror, making him freeze and drop the toothpaste-foamed toothbrush on the floor.  Or at the tailor shop, pressing his hand to the smooth mirror and his heart skipping a beat too many, because he thought another suited figure was standing at his shoulder. 

Every second of every day. Looming over him while he sleeps, but gone when he opens his eyes. In his peripheral vision as he takes out a mark, but fading away when he turns his head to have a proper look. The tiniest whisper around corners, and in quiet rooms, that dissolves into nothing when he listens harder.  

He wishes every man with neatly side-parted brown hair he encountered in London's crush of residents didn't root him to the spot, gluing the sides of his throat together. That when he's with Tilde, he's not thinking of chestnut brown eyes meeting his, rather than her ice-blue ones. That he's constantly having a tiny spaz attack every time he walks into a room in HQ, and one of his smartly-dressed, uniformed colleagues, looks a bit like Harry from the back. 

Harry. Like a sharp-dressed memory, dogging his every move, who promised to sort out this mess when he got back, but never did. JB can't be barking at nothing when he rips shreds out of the toilet door constantly, like there's someone in there with Mr Pickle.

When the tears spring from Eggsy's eyes like clockwork at the faintest mention of his mentor. When muffled cries for someone dead and buried break through the witching hour stillness. When Eggsy falls to his knees and is sick into the toilet, the guilt and grief a writhing maelstrom within him, that threatens to take control of his very essence.  

Eggsy's not alone in the Galahad role. But he's not sure if it terrifies or comforts him, that a wraith in a bespoke suit with a gunshot for a left eye is by his side.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween


	15. Intimacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 15. Intimacy
> 
> I didn't want to do the stereotypical sex scene for intimacy (though I love me a good pwp, don't get me wrong).  
> This is a bit more fluff, and angsty.

Softly glowing twin bedside lamps, illuminating the master bedroom's sophisticated coziness. A four-poster bed the centrepiece of the nest, and in it, two pyjama clad figures. One curled around a small fluffy dog, tapping away on the abrasive light of a smartphone, the other opting for the timeless comfort of a good book just before sleep.

A phone is turned off, and a burning flame of curiosity sparks against the flint of calm.

"Harry."

Eggsy says his lover's name both as a question and a statement. The elder man looks up from the novel Eggsy found him in Harrods last week, that he's been utterly devouring, and appraises him with a slight lift of his eyebrows.

"Yes, darling?"

"Was just thinking...." Eggsy scratches tiny Hamish's ears, and the dog wriggles with delight on the  cushioned bedcovers. Harry rests his novel on duvet, and adjusts his position against the grand wooden bedhead.

"D'you ever take your eyepatch off?"

The former Galahad digests Eggsy's question for a silent moment. "Well I take it off in the shower, yes." He gently slips a bookmark between two pages of his novel, clearly conscious of the leather pad strapped upon his face.

"And when I must wear my glasses, for work." Harry's tone carries a lilt that suggests Eggsy knows this already, but is unsure of what his partner is getting at.

"Yeah, I know babe," Eggsy replies, propping himself up on an elbow. His bare chest and arm provide a cosy nook for Hamish, who immediately snuggles his tiny body in. "But d'you ever like, just leave it off? Like no glasses or nothin'."

"Was just curious, s'all," the dirty blond adds as an afterthought. His eyes traverse Harry's features, in an attempt to gauge a reaction.

The taller man replaces his book on the nightstand, folding his hands in his lap. "No. Not really, no."

"Why?"

The question hangs suspended in the mild air, waiting for one of the two men to snatch it up.

When Harry doesn't jump to respond, Eggsy supplements the question with, "Just wondering, I spose. Cos' you've never really taken it off in front of me ever."

Once again, Harry's answer seems carefully measured, as though the man planned it carefully. "Well, until now, you've never expressed any desire for me to. So I just did as I do when in public, and cover it. It makes no difference."

But by the slight tremor in Harry's voice, and the stiffening of his spine against the cold headboard of the bed,  imperceptible to the untrained eye, it clearly does. As much as Harry tries to hide it.

"I think it does. Make a difference, I mean, babe."

"Are you implying you're comfortable with me removing the patch?"

"Of course I am." Eggsy's tone is full of feeling compared to his partner's reserved one. Yet the older man studiously refuses to meet his eyes, gazing down at the intricately patterned duvet beneath his hands. Hamish snuffles in his sleep.

"Harry." Definitely a question, this time, though softer in hue. "Will you show me?

Please." Eggsy's words have the weight of a single feather, landing soundlessly upon the mattress. A conflicted expression passes over Harry's face having his young lover reconsider such a heavy request. Yet after some thoughtful, brooding stalling by lamplight, a murmured  'yes' still exhales from close lips.

Gently shifting the sleeping puppy away from his limbs, Eggsy scoots over in bed, so his warm frame presses into Harry's. The mood between them has intrinsically shifted, a crackle of apprehension and intensity between them both.

Sliding down with his hands to meet Eggsy in the bed, Harry rests his head on the same pillow. Inhaling, exhaling, he stares up at the ceiling. With rigid, mechanical movements, trembling hands gently reach behind,  into the thick, short waves of chestnut hair, and ease off the sturdy band that keeps the eyepatch in place.

Eggsy waits with bated breath as turning away, Harry deposits the eyepatch on the nightstand with his book, and lays his head back onto the pillow. But the older spy keeps his face toward the ceiling, so only the unmarred side of his profile is visible to Eggsy.

"Are you certain." The waver in Harry's voice is a whisper of anxiety, only those closest to him can detect. Eggsy hears it instantly. The tiniest inkling that the usually unshakeable gentleman, who could kill in a heartbeat, was actually afraid.

A smaller hand slips over to rest soothingly on Harry's sternum, feeling the rise and fall of his lungs. Harry grabs it like a lifeline.

"Absolutely," Eggsy murmurs steadily.

Connection, familiarity,  _intimacy_. It isn't always the art of love-making, of twin nudity, or anything outrightly sexual at all.

It's the lightest of brushes with pinky fingers as lovers walk through their neighbourhood, leashed dog trotting happily in front. Randomly gifting a partner a book they've never heard of, but are sound in the knowledge they will like, because it sounds like the ones they've read before. Afternoons in the garden in summertime, with a gin and tonic and The Sun, getting utterly drenched by a dog mid-wash, but unable to keep a smile away when a boyfriend swoops in for a kiss that tastes like sweat and dog shampoo.  
Communication with but a glance. The twitch of a jaw muscle or setting of eyes that says more than words ever will.

It's Eggsy seeing Harry remove that last, tissue paper barrier between them with methodical, distant hands, even as his eyes swim with intense emotion, jaw set. And then rolling over, to bare all.

Intimacy is letting your lover touch a part of you you barely let yourself go near, with the brush of a single finger over rippled, convoluted flesh.The few inches of skin that are a visual reminder of so much pain, both physical and psychological, of stained glass windows, high white ceilings and splintered pew seats and blood and gore and rage and a single gunshot. Of angry goodbyes that might have been forever, if not for some nanobots, Alphagel, and little Hamish, who yipped in his sleep, a fluffy bundle unaware of his crucial role in an agonising road to recovery. Everything they had gained, everyone they had lost, all came down to a piece of scar tissue.

The part of you that makes you recoil in disgust at its sight, and hide away with trembling hands. For fear that your lover will react the same way, and shy away, because you are no longer whole.  

Eggsy takes Harry's face in his steady hand, and presses the tiniest breath of a kiss to Harry's trembling, ruined eyelid.

Because the truth is, the part of you that turns your stomach is the part they see no difference in. And love, just as unconditionally and endlessly as the rest of you.

“I told you, Harry. I love you, all of you. Always have. One eye or both.”

Hamish the sleepy yorkie wiggles over to the two big waterbottles in his bed, both of which seem to be leaking, and curls up between them with a final huff of contentment.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Passable?


	16. Defiance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 16: Defiance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another one of my favourites, lowkey quite proud.  
> It is so much fun to write location scenes, especially doing all the research for beautiful places like Morocco. Hopefully I've done it justice, as always, feel free to comment.

The bombastic barrage of bullets relentlessly hails down upon two spies, splintering wood, cement chips and paint flakes an additional downpour as they charge around the corner of a Marrakesh market street.

Despite dusk having slipped away hours ago, the day's lingering heat remains trapped in the markets, clinging to stalls and the linen skirts of customers. But there is no time to stop and peruse the beautiful trinkets, or sample the exotic food in a florid melange of hues and colours.

"Galahad! Arthur! Take the next left!" Merlin orders, as the spies barrell through the crush of sweaty bodies in the rowdy market precinct, doing their best not to bowl over the precocious vendors that stepped into their path. Even as black-clad, masked men with semi-automatics thunder after them, paying no heed to the livelihoods they crush underfoot in their destructive path.

"Get down!"

Harry's hand shoves Eggsy's shoulder to the dirt-printed cobblestones as bullets cannonade into the spread of a spice stall, sending intense puffs of grainy powder into the air. Eggsy can taste the intermingling dust and flavour mixed with spit in his mouth. The spice merchant falls, blood blooming and gumming up the fine mounds of powder he so proudly sold.

Another shove from Harry sends Eggsy scrambling behind the next stall showcasing handwoven homewares, before the younger agent finds his feet, sprinting through the masses of bodies as the chorus of panicked screams and gunshots continue. A melee of limbs crawling, jumping, stepping, dragging, women shielding children with their backs, the elderly chivvied away by younger counterparts. A small stampede as Eggsy and Harry turn left, then right, then left again, dodging and weaving through intricately patterned rugs as Merlin barks down the comms link at them.

"Do  _not_  retaliate, I repeat, do  _not._ We dinna know which one of these fuckers has the explosives vest on him!"

"Only one way to find out," Harry says grimly, and abruptly changes direction, scooting up a narrow, grime-stained staircase, Eggsy hurrying after him. "What the f-" More bullets ping off the cement-rendered walls of Marrakesh as their pursuers give chase.

"Harry, the fuck are you doing?" Eggsy hollers, as they shove past frightened women who shrink back to the floor, eyes wide with fear behind their vibrant burqas. The elder man hops over a thick balcony railing, and jumps to a nearby flat cement roof, and the newest Galahad is forced to follow suit.

"We'll be sitting ducks up here!" He bellows, looking to his partner with bewilderment and irritation, as Harry scans the murky sea of rooftops before them. Seeming to have made up his mind, the taller man sets off, nimbly springing to the next roof, of rusty corrugated iron.

"Just trust me, Eggsy," Harry calls as they bound from rooftop to roofstop, scrambling over parapets and edges, as shouts and more shots behind them indicate the terrorists are on their tail.

Another jump, and another, as bullets go whistling past their ears, swift invisible blots of death, and one thuds into the back of Eggsy's bulletproof bespoke. A purple medal of pain will blossom in its place, if they survive Moroccan terrorists to see tomorrow. Concrete, then iron, then more concrete, turning back to fire one shot, another, sweat dripping down his face in the glaring moonlight-

There's a crash ahead, and a curse, two bodies fall to Eggsy's pistol and then he turns around. Harry sprawled on the corrugated, moonlit roof of someone's home, a good portion of his calf wedged immovably within it, having crumbled underfoot. His missing eye had indubitably let him down when it came to securing safe footing.  _Shit_.

"Harry get up, I'll hold them off!" Eggsy cries, even as the rain of bullets makes him retreat much further, past Harry, who, grunting, tries to dislodge his foot from the roof.

"It's no use, Eggsy. " There's defeat in Harry's tone, and it doesn't suit him. A cold trickle of what must be sweat runs down Eggsy's spine, as he takes out another terrorist, a bullet sending the bastard careening off the nearby parapet he stood on.

"No." The thought was unthinkable, even as it formed in Eggsy's brain, a tarry, black plague. "Don't you fucking say it-"

"Eggsy." Harry's tone is sharp, as the man twists uncomfortably to fire on the remaining terrorists himself, all of them dropping bar one. Who, realising both Harry and Eggsy's clips were empty, including his own semiautomatic, drops his gun. And pulls from his camouflaged military jacket a thin tube with a button on top, a feral smile cutting his repulsive face.

_"Waqad ta'asasat dawlat al'islam, mae aljhad min 'uwlayik aldhyn wahabuu altaqwaa, matuu min ajl al'ilh mae taqrir..."_

An iron fist of terror punches through Eggsy's chest. No, no, no -

"Eggsy you have to go." Harry calls, tone sharp, always so proper, even when faced with death. "Go to safehouse Lamp, and do not come back."

'No, no-"

"Leave only when Merlin tells you it is safe, once things have died down, Do you understand?" There's a blazing look on Harry's face, the noble prick, and Eggsy, horror-struck, can't look away.

"Fuck, off, Harry!" He immediately scrambles back in the elder spy's direction panickedly as the terrorist continues to advance, chanting. He's a lot closer to Harry than Eggsy is, and he boy immediately picks up pace, yelling a curse as part of the parapet he's able to step on crumbles away to the ground. Eggsy's sweaty fingers slip, and with a shout, he falls a few meteres, before clinging to the edge of the roof Harry is cemented into "I'm not leaving you-"

"Eggsy, leave." Another pseudo-impact to Eggsy's chest, knocking the wind out of him. "He's going to blow. Go,  _NOW!"_

_"_ _ya 'awman alan nafrah shunq ealaa, alshams sutie mushinaan jamieaan maeaan liaintisar majid min rabin."_

Dirt crunches beneath the black-clad angel of death, as he clears the final rooftop, and is just metres from Harry. Who, as always, keeps a straight face, as his executioner approaches smugly, singing the final bloody verses of his hellish song. Eggsy pulls with all his might, trying to push himself up, onot the rooftop, to save Harry. He couldn't lose him, not again, no, no-"

"Eggsy! GO!" Merlin screams into the comms link, a background sound of terror, and Eggsy finds it. Find that extra thimble of strength, that golden glow of determination, adrenaline wrenching a guttural roar from his lips.

 _"Fuck you!"_  

He bodily rolls himself onto that unstable, iron roof, and with a split second to spare, the terrorist looming over Harry, finger hovering on the trigger, jumps. Eggsy flykicks that motherfucker away from Harry, sending him spiralling off the roof , an earthshaking explosion slamming into both spies as the satanspawn detonates midair.

For a moment, they fall, and with another horrific crash, plummet into the centre of an unsuspecting Morrocan family's living room, landing with two solid thuds on the floor.

Groaning and clutching his ribs, a dust-showered Eggsy pushes the remains of the gobsmacked family's roof off him, creaking to his feet as his head rings. The comms link has disconnected, possibly from the force of the bomb. Fumbling in his suit pocket a little dazedly, he drops every dirham he has, which is more than enough, onto the dinner table, as the five children and frozen mother and father sit, immobile on their cushions.

" _'ana asif. khadun hdha_ _"._

"I believe its pronounced 'heth-ha, hud-ha, Eggsy." Harry, equally dust-bathed, comes to stand beside the younger agent, now freed from the confines of the roof. He gazes up at the sizeable hole in the ceiling. "That should be more than enough to cover it."

But two hands plant themselves on Harry's chest, and shove, making the taller man stumble back, eye widening in surprise at the site of an irate Eggsy, swelling with anger and no longer disorientated.

"Fuck  _you_ , Harry Hart!"

"I don't care that you're Arthur, I dont care I just directly disobeyed an order, I know what it means, I know Merlin'll crucify me, that I'm in deep shit when we get back."

"You're my partner, you gigantic dick." Eggsy's voice has a tiny waver in it, his eyes filling with tears of relief and frustration. "I love you. Now dont you dare ask me to leave you for dead ever again."

He pokes his finger hard into Harry's chest with those words. But Harry sweeps him into his arms, holding him tightly, murmuring words of apology. They share a dry, dust-flavoured kiss, but not for long. Before the Moroccan father, thunderstruck with fury, bald head aglow, comes to his senses. And plucking his antique scimitar from the wall, chases the two illegal homosexuals from his home with rigour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was that a good Marrasesh?
> 
> Also, firgive me if the arabic is trash, i used google translate.
> 
> Eggsy is apologising and offering the family money.


	17. Jubilant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 17: Jubilant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was just really nice to write. Yay

There is a house, in Mayfair, on the first day of summertime. 

Sun bakes weatherworn, whitewashed outer walls of the house, and  soft-petaled flowers neatly potted into boxes under each sill valiantly try not to wither under the heat. Inside the front door, a shoe stand sturdily holds several pairs of mens' dress shoes, all polished to perfection, and an umbrella stand houses two twin black umbrellas, and several winter coats. And, just for today, a tiny pink cardigan cosies up to these beige overcoats, and tiny glittery sneakers nudge the black oxfords. 

The rest of the house, blinds angled to keep out the mid-morning heat, is peacefully silent. But from the soundless, cool hallways, and dark rooms, shrieks of delight can be heard outside. Running water creaks the pipes that run through the walls, laughter and excited yapping create a thread of anticipation and positivity , that comes into view from the kitchen window. 

A grand plume of water sweeps continuously left and right at a leisurely pace, water droplets turned into spheres of liquid diamond as they catch the sun's glowing rays. An inflatable pool sits to the left of the sprinkler, in the shade of a burgeoning willow oak, unyeilding despite the heat. Eddies of water swirl within the pool's faux tile interior, along with the odd bit of grass. 

Because this is a small slice of suburban paradise, in the confines of a typically sized London backyard, framed by an array of stout leafy bushes and gently flowering plants. But paradise doesn't always equate tranquility, as there was nothing tranquil about this outdoor setting in the slightest.

Hoots and hollers of joy and enthusiasm can probably be heard from several houses away, but the noisemakers themselves are without a care in the world. Water-pebbled blades of grass that slip beneath racing feet, and the constant mist of the sprinkler, as Eggsy and Daisy play. And of course, the soggy paws of Hamish the yorkie, giving chase across the expanse of  slightly sun-bleached lawn, and trying with all his might to eat all the water coming out of the sprinkler.

Splashing through the kiddie pool,  then under the sprinkler, squinting up into the sunlight, smiling until their faces hurt. Eggsy, bare apart from a pair of indigo trellis-patterned boardshorts, hoists Daisy into the air, laughing as he tosses her into the air once, twice three times.  She shrieks with delight, wriggling in her pink swimmers with white polka dots. Chuckling unrestrainedly, her elder brother is all water-slick skin, every curve of bone and muscle wreathed by a sunny glow. 

  It's all one delicious, sunny symphony. The only hint of serenity is in the wooden gazebo parked in the far corner of the lush yard.It is in this white wooden sanctuary that Harry Hart reclines, a pillow to his back,  _Pygmalion_  and a cool seltzer water in hand. Watching his whole world frolic in the glorious daylight, beneath a spray of glimmering beads, a peaceful smile upon his warm face. Until dripping hands and soggy kisses give way to unleashing the deluge upon him too, in the form of a bucket filled to the brim right over his head.

Whilst his book is spared, such mischief cannot go unpunished. Wiping the water trickling from his limp hair, Harry shakes off the excess water plastering his cotton dress shirt to his sternum, and gives chase across the garden, a determined grin and laugh splitting his face as the three conspirators flee in mock terror. 

But there's nowhere to run. And when Harry tackles his young love to the soaking grass, both wheezing from exhertion and mirth, he bestows a moist kiss upon those beaming lips, and closed eyes with tiny droplets clinging to the lashes. Until a small swimsuited body with similar fair lashes and hair catapults herself onto her favourite men, knocking the wind out of them. There's more breathless, jubilant laughter in the blinding sunshine followed by the slightly smelly and equally drenched body of Hamish, who seems determined to lick every inch of them he can reach. 

Squirming to avoid Hamish's enthusiastic, sloppy affection, another chuckle springing free, Harry slips this golden moment, of his boy, a little girl and a dog in the sun under the sprinkler, into his sodden trouser pocket. And keeps it forever. 


	18. 18. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long time no post. I got lazy. 
> 
> Chapter 18. Waiting.

  
Mr Pickle doesn't get very many visitors.

His human wasn't the sociable type in the slightest, and hence many guests didn't visit Mr Pickle. Apart from the bald man with glasses occasionally, who would stagger into the bathroom in the wee hours, empty the contents of his stomach into the toilet, and give Mr Pickle a pat up on his shelf. Or the other, more easygoing gentleman, who always sang as he made water, especially when he, the bald man and Mr Pickle's human were drinking.

The bathroom isn't thought to be a vantage point of the home. Yet from here, perched on his special shelf, alongside the lines of butterflies, Mr Pickle can see everything he needs to. He can see the shadow looming from the door when it opens at night, the flick of the yellow-tinged hall light. The sound of oxford-clad feet, the rustle of an expensive coat being hung on its hook, and an umbrella swinging into place beside it.

When he had a body, years ago, he would be in the hallway right this second, gambolling around the pinstripe-suited tower legs of his human. And settling on his haunches on the plush carpet for a well-coveted scratch behind the ears. 

But his body is a little frozen now, suctioned into place on his shelf, with his special golden plaque. So instead of running to meet his human, Mr Pickle must wait, until his dark-haired, long-legged human comes to greet him, and use the lavatory. He always brings a book with him too- _10,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ is Mr Pickle's favourite.

Sometimes, the hallway light won't flick on until the following morning. Or for several mornings after that. On these occasions, when he was a short furry little body, the bald man would visit, to ration out his bowl of dinner, and sometimes slip him a slice of bacon. But now, he needs no food. So all he can do is wait. A handful of times, weeks pass before Mr Pickle's human returns, usually red-eyed with fatigue, and bladder bursting. The first thing he does is pay Mr Pickle a visit, which makes him feel very loved and appreciated indeed. But there's not much talking then, and a flump from upstairs several moments after their reunion will tell Mr Pickle that his human has surrendered to exhausted dreams.

No matter how long he's gone the human always comes home, eventually. To read the newspapers that slowly pile up against the front door, and tend to the modest garden that blossomed out the back.

Until one day, Mr Pickle's human doesn't.

The air in the house feels different, the day after, but he ignores it. His human would come home. He always did. But the funny taste of the air lingers, and the halls remain silent and still, ever since Mr Pickle's human's boy ran out in a flood of tears.

But Mr Pickle's human would come home soon.When he had a body, and he was good, his human would give him treats. He just had to keep waiting patiently, like a good boy. Even as the newspapers that thwack onto the front door pile so high they spill over one day, and the garden grows wild and untamed. Mr Pickle waits, as the loneliness drapes over him like a death shroud.

Eventually, the hall light flicks back on one night. But it's not his human that stumbles through the door in a zombie-like stupor, face puffy from crying. It's his human's boy, the shorter, suit-wearing man, who throws his coat on the floor, and rockets up stairs to collapse on the bed into a ball of agony and tears.

He doesn't say hello to Mr Pickle. So Mr Pickle waits, like he always does, a steadfast picture of patience. For his human, his real human, to come home.

The funny texture of the air never leaves. Mr Pickle is almost used to it, now. The new taste of the air, the foreign smells of the blond-haired boy and his equally fair-haired lady, as they live and breathe and exist in this house.

The woman visits him in the bathroom, from time to time. But she never says hello, just breezes in and out as though he isn't even there.

So Mr Pickle waits. Waits, and waits, and waits.

Because maybe if he keeps waiting, his human will _finally_ come home, and say hello.


	19. 19. Nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 19\. Nature

First, they drive.

The crush of traffic, constant noise, and civilisation . The smog of metropolis they made their lives in, constant company comforting, yet sometimes feels like snakeskin. A size too small, too tight on the body, that needs to be sloughed off.

A suggestion that sparks the journey, after two halves are reunited at whole. Three weeks of deep cover in the United Arab Emirates equates to at least one day completely undisturbed. The weather obliges, and two gentlemen wake to their day off's balmy skies and clear forecast.

Speeding along the freeway, London fading behind them as they sink into adventure. Two spies should get enough adventure as it is, with guns and glamour and killer wardrobes. But today they leave their spy selves behind, losing themselves in the steady sound of a thrumming Jaguar engine and the odd houses that grow fewer with every mile. Steady hands loosely gripping a leather steering wheel, cotton dress shirt rolled halfway up forearms nicked with the odd silvery scar on tanned skin. And smaller hands flopped into a khaki lap, a white Ralph polo rising and falling with relaxed breath. 

Maybe they should just keep driving. Drive and drive and drive, off the slick edge of the world and into the sequinned, glimmering stars. Never look back. Absent daydreams, head leaning against the cool glass of the window.

But where to stop? Which grassy field can they trespass on? Is it wise to trek into the toothpick-treed forest in the distance? Would they journey into the high rows of  burgeoning crops, only to be run over by an unsuspecting farmer?  They laughed, seeing the Sun headline now- " _Men mowed down in tractor tragedy"_. So much for a Kingsman's name appearing in the paper only three times.

"Stop! Here."

Silence as the car engine shuts off, bar the soft whisper of the wind, and miscellaneous bird calls. A sea of waist-high, aurulent stalks, that shift and wave to infinite reaches, beckoning them. Trodden underfoot by two pairs of feet that deftly pick their way to the solitary leaf-clustered tree, standing sentinel-like above the sea of gold.  

What else to bring on a rural quest, but the archaic woven picnic basket and worn blanket? Like something out of every man's dalliant daydream, from the confines of a beige, clinical office.  The tips of the grasses brush their shoulders, as they sit crosslegged, and bring forth the cheese and crackers, the bread, the cucumber, tomato, lettuce and cheese, the folded slivers of ham, and the tiny cakes and pastries that brought droplets of saliva to tongues. 

It's a living, three-dimensional masterpiece. Countless crosshatched stems, a medley of flaxen, gold and mustard. The unshakeable tawny trunk, divoted and dented, with a steady trail of ants marching pointedly across an exposed, gnarled root. Water that placates the tongue with its cool embrace, and the meticulous lines of the woven blanket beneath hands.  The scent of countryside, of dirt and plants that blows through the scumbling of clustered vibrant leaves on each branch. The taste of cheese, and bread, the crunch of crackers, the tonality of Harry's voice that pitches and lowers with different words, a familiar melody glazed over this new landscape. 

Conversation that flutters lazily and without hurry, like the fuzzy bumblebee that nonchalantly wanders past Eggsy's nose. Smiles that swipe naturally across the face, like the stroke of a paintbrush, and the intimate, absent touches of fingers and limbs. And kisses, so many soft-lipped kisses, when bellies bulge with the sheer amount of food, and they cannot possibly consume any more.  It's poetry when Harry lays Eggsy down on the tartan blanket in the middle of the high grass, and makes love as sweet as the cake crumbs on his lips.

The breeze kisses bare skin as they lie together, linked in shifting grasses. Looking up for heaven in a sky of sheer blue, dappled by drifting white tufts of cloud.

But heaven might truly be a place on earth. Of golden stalks, sleepy lovestruck smiles and a vintage tartan blanket.


	20. 20. Sheltered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 20\. Sheltered

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

A fatigued head is leant upon an equally weary hand, burying an eyepatch in the momentary embrace of the palm. Harry wills his remaining eye to stay open, above the deep purple crescent that spelt exhaustion. For Eggsy. Who sat stock-still beside him, straight back now bowed, gazing down at his interlocked hands. 

Returning from Kentucky was never going to be easy. The prospect of rebuilding an entire spy organisation from literally the ground up was an unforgiving cliff face, that Harry was most uneager to climb. After all they had endured, in the past months- in America, in Cambodia...what Harry himself had been forced to come to terms with. Like a pouncing beast that sat heavily upon the chest, it threatened to crush him, choking the air from his windpipe, leaving his gasping for air, for reason-

But to sit and brood in one's thoughts was not the Kingsman way. Even though such thoughts festered at the edges of Harry's consciousness, waving toxic tendrils threateningly. The Kingsman way was to soldier on. 

They had bid Statesman farewell just four days prior, departing with the blessings and best wishes of their cowboy-hatted colleagues. Hamish had been most indignant, hollering impassionedly until his voice was hoarse that he was well enough to travel. But finally, the new Whiskey, formerly known as Ginger, had put her foot down. Six weeks was unquestionably not enough time after a traumatic double amputation to be flying, unless Merlin wanted to actually successfully die this time from deep vein thrombosis. So muttering darkly to himself, the Scot has resigned himself to convalescence for the time being. He texted Harry and Eggsy without fail every single day. 

The trip back is eventful, to say the least. After a very brief stopover in Sweden, for which Harry remains in the plane, Eggsy returns, pours them both a decent-sized drink, and announces his relationship with Princess Tilde has hereby dissolved. Harry allows himself and his protegee to get very tipsy, to dissauge the brooding and dread at returning to Britain to start anew.

But before he knows it, Eggsy's tongue is down his throat. His gorgeous bare rear is in Harry's hands, and the angelic boy bounces on Harry's cock so deliciously, tears pooling on his cheeks as they both cr. Slurring yet genuine heartfelt confessions, of long-time enamourment and love. 

But then the plane touches down, they put their clothes back on. Two pairs of oxford-clad feet hit the stretch of asphalt, and several things become abundantly clear.

Michelle Unwin is less than impressed with her son for leaving unnanounced for three months, and proceeds to spit fire. Right in the doorway of her new Mayfair apartment, at her sheepish son. Until her eyes cloud with relieved tears, and she brings him in for a bone-crushing hug, as little Daisy races over excitedly to throw herself at her big brother. 

The elder female Unwin doesn't seem to recognise Harry as the bringer of Lee's death, which is one small mercy. But when Michelle mentions over a hurriedly cooked tea that policemen had come around several times, looking to question Eggsy...

"Somefin 'bout a girl that were injured during the explosion babe," Eggsy's mother says innocently, twirling her pasta around her fork. "Colleague of yours- Roslyn Mormon?"

Both agents nearly spit out their food. Michelle can't quite understand why they're in such a hurry to leave after only just coming back, but with a promise to return and explain - and some quick phone calls- , Eggsy and Harry hightail over to St Mary's Hospital at Paddington. 

And almost a day later Roxanne Morton, head wrapped in a thick helmet of gauze, slept as soundly as she had when they had arrived. 

The doctor, who looked as exhausted as Harry felt, fills them in. Serious but stable; an induced coma, due to a sizeable head injury and several broken bones. How Roxy had quite literally clawed her way out of tons of rock and rubble over two days, and collapsed into the arms of paramedics. She was the only survivor.

By some miracle, Harry and Eggsy had both been granted visitation. Roxy had no living relatives left, now that Percival had perished in Kingsman's own version of V Day. They were all she had. And Eggsy refused to move. 

He didn't sleep, even as Harry dozed on and off, uncomfortable in the hospital chair. He barely ate the takeaway Harry managed to scrounge up in his shuffles around the hospital. He didn't speak, apart from brusque thank you's and 'yes' or 'no'.

It was too much to process on so little sleep. The sheer fact of Kingsman needing to be rebuilt, what happened on the jet, and now this unexpected, merciful miracle. 

"Eggsy, you need rest." A statement, let loose into the private hospital room, that the intended target does not acknowledge.

"20 hours in transit, to come almost straight here. We've been awake for nearly three days," Harry offers, tone calm yet imploring. His resolute strength is beginning to ebb, but he'll try to stay strong for the both of them.

"We've stayed awake longer for ops." A response, stubborn as expected.

A hand reaches out to tentatively lay itself upon a well-muscled thigh, and Eggsy doesn't object. "This isn't a mission, Eggsy," Harry offers gently.

"Roxy is safe, and well cared for. She wouldn't want you to destroy yourself, waiting for her to wake."

Eggsy croaks, raising bloodshot eyes to meet Harry's. "I can't leave her, 'Arry. We're all she's got now- me, you an' Merlin, once he comes back. She shouldn't be alone- we left 'er far too long."

His headstrong, compassionate, beautiful boy. There was so much hurt squirrelled away in Eggsy, that the younger man tried not to show. But a thimble cannot hold the same volume of water as a bucket, and the cracks were starting to show.

 _Let me in,_ Harry wants to exclaim, as his conscience writhes with agitation. _Let me take this heavy load from your shoulders, and carry it with mine._

"Sirs?" A tuniced attendant stands politely at the door, a ginger this time. There were three, as far as Harry could tell- this one had the graveyard shift. 

"A camp bed has been freed up," she supplies with her hands politely folded in front, voice a calming murmur. "Shall I fetch it for you?"

"That would be most appreciated," Harry manages with a grateful, dismissing smile, even as Eggsy goes to object. He turns once again to his fatigued protegee. 

"Get some rest. I'll sit with her while you sleep."

Some time and stilted discussion later, Harry tucks a hospital blanket over his droopy-eyed boy, lying in the hospital's portable cot. The dim light from Roxy's bedside lamp illuminates his smooth jaw with a peachy glow, as Eggsy fights to stay awake. 

"'Arry?"

He pauses, halfway between his uncomfortable chair and the collapsible bed. 

"Yes, Eggsy?"

"Lie with me." There's a waver in Eggsy's voice that strikes Harry like an arrow to the heart. Wordlessly, he strides over, and folds himself into the confines of the rickety bed. 

It's a tight fit, and not necessarily comfortable, jammed in like twin sardines on a plastic mattress. But better than that accursed chair. The thin pillow teases the tendrils of sleep swimming in Harry's exhaustion-blurred brain. And Eggsy's warm body, head tucked to Harry's shoulder, brings a great deal of comfort.

"D'you think she'll be ok?" Eggsy's voice is barely a husky whisper, their breath intermingling in the meagre space. The bed smells like antiseptic, and mothballs. 

Harry draws the blond close in the dull light, as a shudder ripples through the latter.

"I promise you," he mutters into thick strands of sweet-smelling hair, "That these doctors and nurses are going to do everything they can to make sure she makes full recovery. Okay?"

A sniffle is the only response. So Harry tightens his comfortable embrace, and shelters Eggsy as his boy cries quietly with a mixture of relief and fear. 


	21. 21. Fingertips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 21- Fingertips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay I was bothered to update

There's something about Harry's hands that Eggsy can't take his eyes off.

Harry's hands are skilled, deft. Sun-kissed and scar-nicked, yet still so elegant and refined. They can play the piano, flick the safety off a pistol faster than the human eye and tie every single type of knot on a necktie imaginable. 

Harrys hands fondle the fur of a dog perched on his lap, with long rounded fingers that sign documents, guide a comb through perfectly coiffed hair, and straighten the impeccable edges of his bespoke. They rest absently on the Round table at meetings, yet could jump to action in an instant, coiled with prowess and practice and power. 

These 5 fingers and sturdy palms rip off Eggsy's clothes, hold firm flesh to his own. Grip and caress, possessive in the moment, and leave Harry's young lover keening and shuddering with two fingers against his prostate.

They hold onions steady on the smooth surface of the chopping board, as aproned, Harry meticulously and marvellously cooks.   
Green buds are coaxed out of lifeless soil by those same fingertips, dirt-dusted and skilled with a trowel and secateurs. 

Harry's hands ghost over Eggsy's skin, card between blond locks of hair, and draw him close. On lazy afternoons, late at night in bed, or whenever the fancy of physical affection calls. Harry's hands mean shelter, and comfort- steadfast and unshakeable as the man they were attached to. 

Some people like legs, or tits or arses. Whatever tickles their fancy. But Eggsy loves Harry's hands. Because they say what even the polished gentleman's words can't.


	22. 22. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 22. Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok this one will hurt

"Eggsy?" 

"Yeah babe." A single chestnut and two sea greens lock over the kitchen counter, one set of hands curled around a newspaper, the other in scalding washing up water. 

"Can I ask you something?" Harry's tone is mild, but any fool can sense there's something beneath the blasé front he puts up. 

" 'Course you can," Eggsy urges nonchalantly, scrubbing away at the saucepan in his soapy fingers. "Whassup?"

Harry sets his paper down on the kitchen bench with a sense of finality. Lifting his chin to gaze at his young lover, his words roll off the tongue like heavy barrells, crashing onto the linoleum. 

"I was speaking with Merlin earlier today, and the topic of my, erm, departure came up in conversation."

Skilled palms still in the water, making ripples beneath the layer of bubbles. 

"You've never spoken to me. About what it was like, while I was gone." Harry speaks slowly, voice honed with a tentative edge as he selects his words carefully.

"Will you tell me?"  
The temperature in the house drops, despite the humidity of summer evenings in London. 

Eggsy is immobile for a long moment, before he regards his partner warily. 

"Whatcha want to know." 

"Well, really, just..." Harry's sophisticated words seem to fail him, and the man shrugs, of all things. "Dead people don't usually come back."

What to say? 

That the people he loved seemed to make a habit of walking out the door and never coming back. First his dad, who he and Mum waved goodbye to from the front door,self-assured that their camo-clad hero would return. But it was a different man who knocked on the door, who made his Mum cry and gave him a strange medal- the very same man who sat across the bench at that very moment.

Then, his grandparents- they were old, but to a kid, adults live forever. Then his mum, who didn't go six feet under physically, but seemed to die before Eggsy's eyes the minute Dean slithered into their lives. 

Friends, teachers, neighbours...hope itself seemed to sink into the watery depths of oblivion. Eggsy used to tell himself that losing so much was a good thing- that the less he had, the less vulnerable he was. And vulnerability was weakness, which bruvs from the estates couldn't afford to have, in the world of drugs, dark alleys and bloody faces.

 

Until a long-legged gentleman who says his name, back against the grimey concrete of Holborn, slots into his life. Harry doesn't just get him away from Dean's fists, and beat the shit out of his goons at the Black Prince - the man with the golden whiskey eyes promises reformation.  A chance for Eggsy to be a better version of himself, to follow in his dad's footsteps, keep Mum and Dais safe, and save the world. 

He's the father Eggsy hasn't had in a long time. But also something else, that makes Eggsy's gut sing when they bump shoulders, and wonder when the lights are out in the recruits' bunks what it would be like to kiss those refined lips. The one person who believes in and supports Eggsy unconditionally, without thought of reciprocation or ulterior motive. A steadfast, wise presence, who looks like a god, and might just be one.

Suddenly, Eggsy has something to lose.  And he keeps loving Harry anyway, because Kingsman don't get lost. They are untouchable, unbreakable-

A bullet to the head outside Southglade Mission Church, echoing through a tinny computer speaker. His own screams deafening his ears, blinding tears, heart rended from his chest as Harry falls, and falls, and hits the asphalt. 

But he doesn't say any of this, even as it all swirls within his head, like the eddies in the washing up water.

What can Eggsy possibly say to the love of his life, that will help him understand the image of Eggsy keening on the floor, curled into a tight foetal position? Of the months of dreams, of 'I'll sort out this mess when I get back', and a wraith with a blood-rimmed hole in his head looming out of the shadows? Of the abyss that threatened to swallow Eggsy whole, that ruined his relationship and nearly his career, all because Harry was gone? 

Eggsy smiles a tight smile, which he knows, as much as he tries, doesn't reach his eyes. 

"Whoever said it was better t' love than t' lose ain't never loved anyone, bruv."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay feelings


	23. 23. Wishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 23- Wishes

A birthday is, by all merits, just another day.

Harry wakes to the apricot-tinged sky, translucent white curtains filtering in the dawn light. The furry croissant that is Hamish, curled against his hip, burrows further into the cosy coverlet as Harry eases himself out of bed.

Being one year older does not solicit any alterations to one's morning routine. Nor does one less body than usual. The kitchen blind still opens at 6:30 am sharp, and the coffee machine grumbles to life, filling the silent house with the grinding of Harry's breakfast. Dog food is deposited into Hamish's bowl, the rattle of each pebble sending the dog thundering from Harry's room down into the kitchen. The morning paper is perused, long black imbibed, and a navy blue pinstriped suit it selected from the confines of the wardrobe, along with its accompanying tie. 

On go the sock garters, the socks themselves, and the belt from the aptly named Harry's of London loops through Harry's trouser loops as usual. A crisp white dress shirt is shouldered on, cufflinks clicked into place, and on go the ever present shoulder holsters, disguised by the buttoning up of the pinstripe suit jacket. 

Hair is combed, cologne applied, and glasses, one lens blacked out, perched securely on Harry's nose. With a farewell pat to Hamish, bandying around his legs, Harry pulls his Rainmaker from the coat stand, and leaves for work. 

It's a quiet day. Harry hates pomp and circumstance on his birthdays, as the people closest to him are well aware. There is no fanfare when he arrives at work, merely a slate of polite 'Happy Birthday, Arthur' 's from his knights. Several stacks of paperwork , an inspection of some new Kingsman-issue sea vessells, and a phonecall with the CIA about Gawain's last mission in Alaska. Then just after a lunch of leftover pad thai, Merlin lopes into the Arthur office with Harry's gift- a bottle of his favourite wine,  2006 Chris Ringland shiraz from the Barossa Valley. The same gift, every year- Harry is a creature of habit.

 

After a glass with his oldest friend, some cards from distant acquaintances and relatives and a bit more work and no play, the sun is slipping behind the thick hedges that border the HQ manse. The ride home in the Kingsman tube seems cold and empty, and Harry has to force himself to smile goodbye to Ector, in the shop, as he strides for the front door. 

He had hoped for some correspondence, at least. For hours later, as Harry tucks himself up in bed, he actually feels the maudlin strings of loneliness begin to play inside his heart. Success and celebration and achievement is all wonderful, indeed. But not if one has no soul by their side to share it with. 

So Harry makes his birthday wish, back against the cool headboard of the bed, hands stilling halfway through reading the nineteenth chapter of Anna Karenina. A wish for the solitude that he wore like a heavy winter cloak to be cast aside, if just for one more day. 

Eyes closed, brow slightly furrowed, Harry must be so caught up in his silent, heartfelt wishing, that he neglects to notice the third stair creaking, as feet soundlessly climb to the second floor. That the swish of trouser pants on the carpet approaching his bedroom door escapes him, as he prays to God, to the universe, to whatever is up there, if there is a there, to grant him this one small kindness.

"Happy birthday to you..."

 

Harry's eyes dart open, and his arm shoots for the pistol beneath his pillow momentarily, fumbling for the metal kiss of the hand grip. But recognition gleams in that solitary hazelnut eye, his body relaxes with joyous relief, and a true, genuine smile splits his face.

"Happy birthday to you..."

Three months of deep cover in Bangladesh sees a rather battered and bruised Eggsy Unwin pacing towards Harry, smile wide despite the sticking plaster marring his smooth cheek. A lit birthday cake is nestled safely in his outstretched palms, as he rounds the edge of the bed and comes to sit on the covers beside Harry. 

"Happy Birthday, dear Harry..." 

Eggsy's robust warble hitches as Harry reaches out a hand to his boy's face, thumb smoothing along the edge of a chiselled, slightly scraped jaw. The blond leans into the touch, his cerulean gaze balmy in the titian glow of the bedside lamp as the corners of his mouth quirk further up.

"Happy birthday to you." A single whoosh of air from Harry sends his candles stuttering out, the mocha cake swirled and studded with simple yet appealing chocolate adornments. 

"What did you wish for?" Eggsy enquires, raising an eyebrow imperceptibly as he holds Harry's warm, sincere look of utter love. 

"I suppose I can tell you," Harry murmurs, his arm drawing Eggsy close to lie beside him, cake perched percariously on the older man's lap. " Something I already have, that makes me deliriously happy."

"Mmm?" Eggsy's golden lashes are half lowered, wreathing his tired, loving eyes in flaxen. The men's breath intermingles as their faces are drawn together by what appears to be an invisible magnet, leaving both unwilling and unable to pull away.

Harry kisses his biggest, and by far the best, wish.


	24. 24. Breakable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 24. Breakable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're gonna love me but hate me...

It's done.

The press of a single laptop key, that saves the world from the 'Dancing Disease'. That sparks fire in the motors of thousands of drones spotting the globe, and delivers clusters of antidote into frozen limbs.

It's all happening, right now. And all Harry and Eggsy can do is sit, rigid on the red leather seats of Poppy's diner, the far off calls of monkeys and rustle of trees piercing the eerie silence of the dead.

Eggsy can't tear his eyes from the screen, from the animations of the drones flying in China,  Russia, the UK, America. There's the usual post-op numbness settling upon him, swathing the trauma of the past hour in a blanket of cold. But it's merely a temporary solution, until debrief with M-

No, don't think about it. Eggsy exhales a shaky breath, and rips his gaze from the laptop. "We did it," he says, breathless with disbelief, as he looks at Harry.

"Indeed." Harry's voice falls strangely on Eggsy's ears. It's husky, and not at all put together, as the elder spy bows his head, facing the counter, unwilling to meet Eggsy's scrutiny.

But the longer his eyes rest on Harry's broad shoulders, his lean, lithe frame, the more Eggsy realises. That his mentor, delivered from death by their Statesman colleagues, looked as good as Eggsy felt. Like a single gust of wind would blow him off the retro red stool, and send him far, far away, into beckoning black oblivion. 

"Harry?" Shit, why was Eggsy's tone so unsteady, his traitorous eyes beginning to burn with unshed, salty tears. The diner blurs before him, but Harry turns his head, and slowly raises his sole hazelnut eye to lock with Eggsy's.

One wavering second, two, three-

They move as one, two bodies rocketing towards each other to embrace with all the force they could muster. Eggsy's choked sobs muffle into Harry's suit, his tears dampening the expensive bespoke,  and his arms are iron bands around Harry's sternum as the true tidal wave of grief crashes over them both. Merlin is gone. Their wisecracking quartermaster, murderous Scot and closest living friend, gone. Harry's face is pressed hard to the top of Eggsy's neatly parted hair, and muted vibrations sound on the top of his skull.

"He's gone, he's gone-"

"I know," Harry growls out with raw anguish, cheek squashed to Eggsy's head. 

A large hand cradles Eggsy's head like a child, and a tear that isn't his slips down his temple and past his ear. Because amid the roaring, agonising maelstrom of his own tearful, heart-rending mourning, Eggsy comes to an epiphanic conclusion.

Harry Hart; unshakeable, steadfast, resolute Harry Hart.  Who killed every Poppyland employee in the courtyard without batting an eyelid, laid waste to an entire Kentucky church with predatory grace and skill, and who took death right in the face and told it to fuck off...

 All 6 foot of this astonishingly gorgeous, lethal man, who made Eggsy feel like an inadequate child, was human. And just like anyone else, like civilians, politicians, their friends, Eggsy himself,  Harry Hart has a limit. After all he had endured, losing friends left and right to the world's demons, a gunshot to the eye and the trauma of amnesia, Harry Hart was breakable. He always had been, as determined as the man had been to hide it, behind his polished words, canny wit and impressive wardrobe. 

And it took until Poppy Adams was blue-veined on her spotless black and white tiles, and Whiskey was literally mince meat, for Eggsy to truly see Harry Hart. For everything he was, good and bad. And love him truly, madly, deeply, just as he had all long. 

"If you've quite finished this touching display," A clipped, croaking Scottish accent gasped, the sound of a dog door clattering an accompanying background noise. "Could someone please call Statesman for extraction, before I actually kick the bucket?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehehe


	25. 25. Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 25- Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incoming sappy crack fic

A near death experience tends to affect one's perspective on aspects of life. New revelations and epiphanies for an individual never before contemplated, due to this new rewiring of the brain.

In particular, the idea of wasted time often haunts those who have come close to perishing. The thought of hours, minutes, seconds dripping by, potential squandered and disregarded by those who had not felt the sharp, slow scrape of looming doom...it was simply no longer tolerable. Even more so when such notions of wasted time included two fully grown men. Who by all accounts seemed determined to faff about as much as humanly possible, unable to communicate their romantic feelings to each other. Utterly fucking ridiculous.

So Roxy can't possibly see how she could be blamed for taking matters into her own hands. 

Harry Hart's office door is wide open in the newly rebuilt HQ corridor, letting in the spring afternoon breeze. Roxy takes this a a universal sign to breeze right in herself, and interrupt her superior's post-lunch paperwork. 

"Arthur," she acknowledges briskly, yet not without warmth, as the elder man's singular hazelnut eye meets hers from behind his grand desk, awash with file after file. There's no envy in her assessment, several hours shy of an op to the Gaza strip. She'd rather jump out of the Kingsman jet from training again rather than do those mounds of tedious signing and scribbling. 

"Lancelot," Harry's precise hand stills midway through his signature, the pen poised in his refined yet casual grip. His acknowledgement serves its bald, explicit purpose, but his tone solicits a subtle, questioning edge. Typical of those in Kingsman's employ, carefully coached in the art of wordplay. So that a singular sentence could contain the words of many more sentences, without the latter being physically uttered. 

"A question for Harry the gentleman, rather than Arthur the boss," Roxy offers, standing before the man's desk, sweeping her arms to rest behind her back. A singular eyebrow is raised by her conversational partner, and with a slight twitch of her right eye, the recording mechanism within Roxy's glasses flicks on it's red light.

"Go on." Harry completes his signature, before setting down the pen.

"What might be your general preference, sir, for a potential love interest?"

"Regarding height, hobbies, age, Zodiac sign?" Roxy adds as a calm afterthought, even as Harry regards her with concern over the tortoiseshell rims of his own spectacles. 

A cough. "Lancelot, while I'm very flattered, I hardly think this is appropriate."

Roxy blurts instantaneously, backpedalling for some selbance of propriety. "Oh no, no sir, I'm just, asking for-"

"Good," Harry emphasises, eye wary with appraisal. " As it is often frowned upon for a man of my age to be with a lady like yourself-"

"Sir, please," Roxy says bluntly, distaste clear despite her excellent manners. "I'm gay. I've been dating Amelia, Berlin tech department Amelia, for five months."

Silence fills the tranquil office momentarily. Harry, usually steadfast in the face of all threats, appears taken aback. 

"Oh. Very good, yes. Me too."

"Not the dating Amelia thing," he backtracks hastily, as Roxy surveys him with amusement. Harry Hart in a state of flusterment was not a sight she had been treated to, until now. "The, erm, gay thing."

She attempts to be pleasantly surprised, widening her eyes. Though by now Harry has likely concluded Roxy is well aware that Kingsman's captain, in polite speech, was 'in the way of uncles'. 

"Yes, sir, that's fine," Roxy placates, trying not to let the corners of her soft mouth turn up too much. "That's perfect, actually."

She turns on her heel to depart from the door. "Thank you for your time."

"Miss Morton?"

Roxy pauses, a hand brushing the doorframe as she looks back over her shoulder to Harry, unmoved at his desk. 

" Exactly one hundred and seventy eight metres in height, athletic- very fond of freerunning- and a skilled driver, 27."

"And I don't know anything about Zodiac signs," Harry adds mildly, seemingly daring Roxy to interject, " But I hardly see how that will be an issue. Might you ask Eggsy, seeing as he is privy to this private conversation between you and I, right this minute?"

Harry didn't miss a trick. Somehow, Roxy maintains her look of innocence, mustering a "Sir?" even as a message screaming "LIBRA LIVRA FUKN TEL HIM IM LIBRA," pings onto the left lens of her spectacles. 

"I'm available tonight,  after 7pm, and I do not like seafood on a first date. Good afternoon, agents."  

Roxy, unable to keep to smirk from her face any longer, strolls around the corner, folding her spectacles into her pocket. Eggsy had better get her, his best friend in the entire world, the best goddamn Christmas present ever.


	26. 26. Realisation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 26: Realisation

The vows have been written, in flowing golden cursive upon each pristine white wedding program. The flowers have been picked and arranged, bouquets of flora that breathe of a lovely day. The suits have been measured and fitted, the wedding bands bought, the wedding cars polished and shined until they gleamed. 

Whiskey never fails to burn a man's throat, but this thumbful feels particularly searing. Harry swallows down Eggsy's pre-wedding toast with a choked gulp, thankful that his glasses hide how much his eyes are streaming. 

"Do I look like a dick?" Eggsy questions a tad doubtfully, picking at the hem of his groom's coat. The Swedish military formalwear, medalled and tasselled and royally resplendent would've drowned a lesser man, yet on the new Galahad, it was perfect. Only a bespoke tailored suit would have looked finer, but no one dared to contradict the Queen. Grooms marrying into royalty wore military regalia or they didn't marry into royalty at all, apparently. 

Rather than deign to respond immediately, the whiskey still singeing his windpipe, Harry sets down his tumbler with an quiet sigh. 

"Look in the mirror."

Two bodies stop before the standing mirror, gazing back at each other through the reflection. Eggsy's bright green eyes catch in the morning light from the window behind. He's never looked more like Lee Unwin than in this moment. 

There's a tight knot in Harry's sternum beneath his pastel pink waistcoat, and a funny lump somewhere in his throat as he asks his former protegee, "What do you see?"

"Someone who can't believe what the fuck is going on," murmurs Eggsy jovially, dropping his head with a secret smile. The smile he seems to reserve for a special few. Harry smiles a tad less mechanically in response, but no matter how hard he tries, he can't will the sadness out of his reflection's chestnut-hued eyes. The normally stalwart creature he was had abandoned him, mere moments from nervous laughter or tragic crying. 

"I see a man who is honourable," He says, in a vain effort to distract himself. "Brave, loyal.

"Who's fulfilled his huge potential." Curse the iron strands binding his throat together. 

" A man who has done something good with his life," he finishes, heart beating uncomfortably fast. A bullet to the head from a celebrity megalomanic at South Glade Mission Church hurt less than this moment. 

Eggsy grins again, and Harry might as well shatter. But that young, smooth, untroubled face defaults back to seriousness in a split second. 

"I owe you everything, Harry," He speaks softly. The light that catches in his green eyes is similar to the Callophrys rubi, known to most as the Green Hairstreak. Except those delicate wings of emerald green couldn't send a laser clean thorugh Harry's stone heart like Eggsy did. "Thank you." 

Somewhere else in this castle, a girl who's known Eggsy a year less than Harry and yet so much longer is putting on her lacy wedding dress. A girl who is everything Harry is not; young, blonde, Swedish royalty. A girl who can't possibly have any idea of how much Gary Unwin meant to the chap who brought him to Kingsman, and who by doing so, had effectively begun their love story. Causation; Merlin would have called it something of that ilk. 

"Don't mention it," Harry smiles, but it's more of a grimace. It's definitely not whiskey that is smarting in his chest now, sending pins and needles through his chest cavity and squeezing his lungs. 

Words spoke aloud in foolish candor can wound the heart. But it's the words unspoken on a heavy tongue that destroy the soul.

"Do I look like a dick?"

You look dashing. You always do. 

"Someone who can't believe what the fuck is going on."

I see a man who made a complete an utter cock-up of the past two years. Who spent it unconscious, dying or denying how much he felt for a man half his age. 

"I owe you everything, Harry." 

You owe me nothing. I never did this to repay your father; it was all for you, my dear boy.

I fell in love at Holborn Police Station. A Kingsman belongs in a tailored suit, not a palace uniform. Don't marry her. My favourite kind of butterfly was always going to be you.

I love you.

Sometimes life isn't fair. Sometimes love means to suffer, if it means that the one that you love will be happy.

And that realisation bites Harry's tongue, as Eggsy murmurs wistfully, "Not a doubt in my mind." 

Harry Hart just smiles until his face hurts, and prepares to die in a church for the second time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry is allergic to churches: a TED talk


End file.
